Pyro's NaNoWriMo
by Chellerbelle
Summary: Pyro participates in 2013's NaNoWriMo: A story about writing a story.
1. October 31

This is a little something I decided to write for the fun of it. Chapter lengths range from short to shorter. This story will end on December 1.

This story is very much a WIP. As such please note that while I intend there to be daily updates, I may end up skipping days. Also, the rating on this story may end up increasing to 'M' but that really depends on Pyro, Wanda, Gambit, and Rogue, and how, um, 'adventurous' they're feeling. No, seriously, it really does depend on that. These guys write themselves. I never know what they're going to get up to *eyes them suspiciously*.

Enjoy!

* * *

**October 31**

Pyro taped his new sign to his bedroom door and appraised it with a grin. Now everything was ready for the next day. He couldn't wait to get started.

At that moment, Gambit came down the hall. Since being released as one of Apocalypse's Horsemen, Magneto had recalled Gambit to finish serving out his contract as one of the Acolytes, which Gambit took with good humour. Thanks to Pyro burning down the warehouse, however (he was bored and the warehouse was so flammable), the Acolytes were now living with the Brotherhood.

Gambit paused outside of Pyro's door and read his sign out loud: "You disturb me, I'll flambé you." He paused and cocked his head at Pyro. "You just felt the need to state what we already know?"

"I must not be interrupted in November," Pyro said firmly. "It's NaNoWriMo. I must not be disturbed! There's nothing worse than being interrupted in the middle of a good run by trivial nonsense."

"What the heck is NaNoWriMo?" Gambit asked.

Pyro gaped at him like he'd just said something offensive. "It's National Novel Writing Month, although frankly 'International' Novel Writing Month would be more accurate. I've been doing it every year for years. You were even there last year..."

"No, I was in New Orleans most of last year," Gambit corrected.

"Oh, I mean the year before then," Pyro said, thinking of their time together in their old base. "You don't remember me shutting myself into a room for most of November?"

"Nope."

"Some friend you are. Look the point is, mate, I'm going to be bloody pissed with anyone who interrupts me while I'm trying to write. There will be hell to pay. Hell, I tell you."

"Flambé, even," Gambit replied with a smirk. "Good luck getting peace and quiet in this house."

As if on cue, they heard Wanda shriek "Toad!" and a moment later Toad came flying down the hallway, freshly blasted by one of her hex bolts. Toad hit the floor and rolled down the stairs.

"Yeah," Pyro said slowly. "I get the point."


	2. November 1

**AN: **Just feel that I should clarify that the story Pyro is writing for NaNoWriMo is not the story I'm writing. Also, I warned you some of these chapters would be "shorter" heh.

* * *

**November 1**

_Alaina lifted her hands and gazed at the crackling scarlet magical energy dancing over her hands. Her heart raced as she looked upon the charred remains of the bandit on the ground before the opened door of the carriage._

Pyro continued writing the opening scene in utter delight, thrilled at seeing the words he'd been replaying over and over in his head appear upon the screen.

_The grey-haired man nearest the carriage door glanced out at the body, and then back at the slim, raven-haired young woman._

_"I didn't realise you were a mage," Roch said, eyeing her speculatively._

_She looked at him with a start, then again at the scarlet energy as it appeared to dissolve._

_"I'm not," she replied. "Am I?"_

_"If you're not," he answered seriously, "then I wonder how you could tap into ley lines without any prior training."_

Pyro cackled to himself in utter delight. Okay so the whole older-wizard-mentor thing was a tad tropey; it wouldn't be by the time he was done with it!


	3. November 2

**November 2**

"How's the story going?" Wanda asked Pyro as he entered the kitchen to get his breakfast.

"Great," Pyro replied, opening up the fridge so he could stare inside indecisively inside it. "I wrote over 2,500 words yesterday. Only need to write 800 today and that will put me ahead of schedule."

"So what do you get if you win?" asked Pietro, who was sitting casually on the bench while eating his cereal.

"A feeling of smug satisfaction, bragging rights, and a certificate," Pyro said cheerfully.

"That's it?" Pietro asked, completely unimpressed. "No prize money or anything?"

"It's not that kind of competition. It's about challenging yourself," Pyro said firmly, taking the orange juice out of the fridge. "It's about rising up and meeting the challenge and fulfilling a goal."

"Are you at least going to get the story published when you're done and make some money from it?" Pietro asked.

Pyro gave a long suffering sigh. "What is with you people? Any time I say I'm writing a novel, some narrow-minded knob-jockey has to ask about getting it published and making money, and sometimes make some disparaging remark about how competitive the industry is. And I suppose you have some _winning_ advice on how to make my story appeal to the mainstream. Maybe some sparkly vampires?"

"Whoa geez, it was just a question," Pietro replied, holding up his hands. "I just don't see why you'd want to write a whole novel for no reason."

"I just told you!" Pyro exclaimed and Pietro went back to his cereal, shaking his head. "It's about the challenge. Plus I always learn something new about myself as a writer, what works for me and what doesn't."

"Riiiiight."

"Okay, so that's why you're doing this NaNo thing," Wanda cut in then. "But what about the story itself? Why are you writing this particular story?"

Pyro's face brightened and he finally poured his glass of juice. "It's one I've been thinking about for awhile. I haven't got all the details figured out yet, but I always come up with my best stuff on the fly anyway. NaNo's good for that, at least for me, because it's a case of 'I don't have time to think about this, just use whatever first pops into my head'. And sometimes it turns out crap and sometimes it's the most brilliant thing ever. But it's a first draft, it's okay if it's utter garbage. The point is that I'm finally writing it."

"Why would you want to write garbage?" Pietro asked.

Pyro stared at Pietro. Pietro stared back.

"Idiot," Wanda said to her brother. "It's not about wanting to write garbage, it's realising that not everything on the first draft is going to be perfect, but it's okay because you can fix it later. We don't all succeed on the first try after all."

"Thanks Wanda," Pyro said. "That's exactly it."

Wanda gave him a nod.

"Anyway, I'll be going to a Write In later today," Pyro went on, shoving a couple of slices of bread into the toaster.

"A Write In?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna get together with some other Wrimos and we're going to write together," Pyro said as he leaned against the bench to wait for his toast, orange juice in hand. "There's one on every Thursday night and Saturday afternoon."

"So you write together? On the same story? Or on your own stories you just all happen to be in the same room?"

"The latter. It's great. We have word wars and everything."

"Word wars?"

"Yeah, compete against someone or someones to write the most words in a given time. It's awesome," Pyro replied, his eyes glittering in anticipation.

"Oookay," Wanda said, not really sure what to make of that. "So, what's your story about?"

"It's about a world where mages rule the roost," Pyro replied, deciding not to say where Pietro was listening in that he was writing a romance. "On the one side is the land of Lacuura—"

"La-what now?"

"Lacuura. I just threw some letters together into something I figured I could pronounce," Pyro replied blithely. "Anyway, Lacuura is ruled by the Magic Council, which has all the typical council-type problems; petty bickering, internal power struggles, all that jazz. Across the border is the land of Inosha, ruled by the iron fist of the Black Queen."

"The Black Queen?" Wanda repeated and cocked her head at him. "Why's she called that?"

"Because she's evil and I'm not in the mood to be subtle," Pyro replied cheerfully. "Plus the colour of her magic is black. All the mages have a natural colour, you see, and when the colour of their magic is revealed they change their name so that their colour becomes their lastname. Kind of like how people used to use their trade for a lastname: Smith, Taylor, Thatcher, Cook, that sort of thing."

"Sounds like you've put some thought into this," Wanda said.

"Heh, yeah," Pietro said before Pyro could respond. "It's probably the only thinking he's done since he's been here."

"I'd advice you to be careful, Quicksilver," Pyro replied with a smirk as his toast popped behind him. "For I am a writer and if you piss me off I will put you into my novel and do horrible, horrible things to you."

"You can't do that," Pietro said smugly. "There's laws against that. I could do for defamation of character."

"Sure, you could do that," Pyro said with equal smugness as he turned to butter his toast. "But first you would need to convince the jury that the character in question was you, and that would mean admitting that you share every single one of the character's characteristics… including his tiny dick."

Wanda laughed.


	4. November 3

**November 3**

"Stop, stop!"

Christophe gave a long-suffering sigh as he looked upon Alaina, curled up on the floor and trying to cover up her nakedness. What was left of her clothes were scattered round her. He leaned over and gave her shoulder a light tap.

"Hey!" Alaina objected, glaring up at him with her knees up to her chest and her arms over chest. "What was that for?"

"And your protection spell is down," he scolded her. "My hand should have bounced right off but did it? No. You are going to have to pick out better clothes, _sorceress_. In a real battle they won't care if you're embarrassed about being naked in front of them; they'll relish it, because in your embarrassment you'll give them all the advantages they need to beat you. Stand up."

"No," Alaina replied stubbornly, glaring at him. "Not unless I have something to wear first."

"You haven't got a single thing I haven't seen plenty of times before, darling," Christophe replied, considered for a moment, then sighed. "Fine."

He took up him staff from where he left it against the wall and held it in front of him with both hands. A soft magenta light covered him briefly, and when it lifted he was dressed in pants, boots, a shirt, a leather jerkin, and a long travelling cloak. He took off the cloak and handed it to her.

"Here, clothes," Christophe said. "And you're lucky I'm not making you do this naked. Honestly, I have never understood mages who insist on covering up. We're not peasants."

Alaina scowled as she wrapped the cloak around her and stood.

"Until a couple of weeks ago, I was a trader's daughter," she snapped at him. "Traders are hardly peasants."

"I suppose that depends on how successful you are, and either way you're still covering up," Christophe replied and turned for the door. "This way my little trader's daughter. We'll make a mage out of you yet."

…

Pyro paused and considered Christophe thoughtfully, trying to decide if he was being charming or not. It was hard to tell, since he had reversed the status quo of clothing: Less clothing was a sign of power, whereas anyone wearing the equivalent of a suit and tie was actually a sign of weakness. Of course, no one actually went around naked—although some mages like Christophe came close—and there was still some sense of modesty.

He decided not to worry about it for now and continue writing. There'd be time for edits after NaNoWriMo was over and if it meant he scrapped the whole scene, then he'd scrap the whole scene. For now it was more important to write the words.

He turned his attention to writing about Christophe and Alaina leaving the tower and heading into town, and took some fiendish delight in making Alaina pissed off with Christophe for his previous comment about how he should be making her do this naked. Eventually, they arrived in Cosette's clothing store.

…

"Oh my," Cosette said, staring at Christophe in his fully-dressed state. "You're dressed for once. I'm in shock."

"Not for much longer," Christophe replied blithely, and indicated Alaina. "This is Alaina Scarlet. She's in need of some clothes worthy of a sorceress."

"Hi," Alaina said, feeling awkward.

Cosette paused and looked hard at Alaina. "Sorceress?"

"Yep, Roch Grey found her. There she was, doing magic, and never been to mage school," Christophe replied with a smirk. "So I'm giving her a little private tutoring."

"Private tutoring," Cosette repeated with raised eyebrows.

"Well, someone has to teach her magic, and you know Roch," Christophe replied with a shrug. "So busy trying to figure out how ley nodes are created he can't spare a little time for the stray mage he found."

…

"Score for the important plot point," Pyro said to himself. "And now to use up a bunch of words writing about shopping."


	5. November 4

**November 4**

"Feel that?" Roch asked Alaina as they travelled along the road in the open carriage. "There are many ley lines around here. You should be able to sense their presence quite easily."

Alaina considered as she reached out from within herself.

"Yes," she said slowly. "Yes, I do believe I can."

"Good. Even if you don't need to use ley lines yourself, knowing how to sense them and where they lie is important information," Roch said. "Now, you should feel a place where multiple ley lines meet coming just up ahead, exactly like at home."

"Yes I see it," Alaina replied after a moment's pause. "That's a ley node, right?"

"Right. The ley nodes feed the ley lines. They are key, primal sources of magic power," Roch said with reverence in his voice.

Sunset, who was sitting next to Roch, began mouthing the words as Roch went into his usual lecture about ley nodes. Alaina tried valiantly to focus her full attention on Roch and not be distracted, but she inevitably started grinning despite herself. Roch caught her look, and the way her eyes darted to his side, and finally stopped mid-speech to look at Sunset, who smiled innocently back and held up his book as if he'd just been reading the whole time.

"Five more minutes," Christophe announced from the driver's seat, and Alaina was pleased for the distraction.

Christophe was the most she'd ever seen him dressed for this excursion. He was fully clothed in gear suitable for a perfectly ordinary, professional coach driver; pants, jacket, shirt, hat, gloves. It was the first time she'd ever seen the Magenta Master of Disguise not wearing magenta. Alaina wasn't sure if he was doing the disguise thing to stay in practice, or if he was concerned about their security despite being granted permission by the Black Queen to entered her lands for this study.

…

Pyro sat back in his chair and yawned. He copied his entire story and pasted it into the word counter on the NaNoWriMo website. He gave a grunt at the total: 9136. That put him at 2468 words ahead of schedule. He'd take that. He hadn't written quite as many words today as he would have liked, but off days would happen.


	6. November 5

**November 5**

Pyro stared at the screen and the miserly 100 words he had written. He glanced at the clock. It was almost ten that night and all he had written were those meagre 100 words.

"It's okay, Pyro," he told himself. "You've had your off days before and you've recovered in the past. At least this time you were ahead of yourself."

He stared at the screen more in silence, torn between walking away and trying to write more. In frustration, he began to bang his head on the desk.

"Why...does...this...scene...hate...me?" he wailed between thumps.


	7. November 6

**November 6**

Pyro chewed his bottom lip as he looked at the words on the page. He glanced over at the statistics page of his NaNoWriMo profile.

"Okay well, the good news is that you're ahead, sort of. You only need to write about 900 words today to crack 10,000. Yeah you had a lousy day yesterday, but lousy days happen," he told himself. "Today's a new day. If you can't figure out this scene, then just write the next one."

He put his hands on the keyboard, poised at the ready.

"Just write the next one," he repeated under his breath.

He started at the screen for about twenty minutes.

"Screw this, I'm going on Tumblr," he muttered to himself.


	8. November 7

**November 7**

Gambit knocked on Pyro's door. Almost immediately, he was answered with a shriek of annoyance, the stomping of feet, and the door flying open. Pyro stood there with a made look in his eyes and a ball of fire—courtesy of his trusty lighter—in his hands.

"It's flambé time!"

Gambit lifted the fire extinguisher. Pyro hesitated, then growled as he doused the flame.

"What do you want?" he snarled.

He hadn't been able to write a thing all day and it was pissing him off.

"Magneto's here," Gambit replied blandly. "He has a job for us."

"Really?" Pyro complained, his pain written all over his face as the thought about how far behind he'd gotten. "Today of all days?"

"Yep. So your little story will have to wait."

"It's not little!" Pyro objected, but he left his room and reluctantly followed Gambit downstairs to where Magneto had called his meeting.

Three hours later, their mission of destruction was rudely interrupted by the arrival of the X-Men who seemed to think that making a pre-emptive strike against a blossoming new anti-mutant para-military group was a bad idea. Seriously, did no one ever tell these X-Fools that evil prevails when good men do nothing?

One thing that Pyro did like about fighting alongside Gambit was that his explosions occasionally started fires, and that mean more fires for him to play with! Thus it was that on these kinds of missions and fights, Pyro liked to be within range of Gambit, especially if he was running low on fuel.

As it happened this particular night, in between trying to keep Storm from raining on all his flames, Pyro spotted Gambit fighting with Rogue. The sight made him smirk; Gambit undoubtedly liked that arrangement very much. Pyro suspected—although he could never get the Cajun to admit it—that he had something of a crush on Rogue.

He only caught glances of their melee battle, but he was certain that he saw Rogue touch Gambit's butt at one point, and Gambit's hands grab her breasts. Of course, it was more likely that he just had his "romance novelist" hat on and was just seeing what he wanted to see, but details! The very idea of Gambit and Rogue using the fight as an opportunity to feel each other up was giving him all sorts of wonderful ideas.

The Black Queen's right hand woman... An assassin, perhaps? Yes, that would be perfect. A mage skilled in the dark arts—oh she should be like his heroine and capable of performing magic without having to tap into ley lines! Ooooooh! Better still, the Black Queen feels threatened by her because she was just as powerful as herself, if not moreso. In secret, the Black Queen laid a curse upon her, lest she ever decide to usurp the throne.

His muse was back!


	9. November 8

**November 8**

After much head scratching and easily distracted searching online, Pyro decided there was only one thing for it.

He got up from his desk, picked up a notepad and pen, and left his room. He soon found Gambit in the kitchen with Wanda. Wanda glanced over at Pyro as he entered and picked up her drink.

"Well now, look who's emerged," Gambit said, breaking off his conversation with Wanda. "You're not done with your writing for the day already are you?"

"No, no," Pyro replied with a wave of his hand, and he leaned over the counter island. "Actually, I was hoping you'd answer a question for me."

"Mmm?"

"If you could pick an outfit for Rogue, what would you dress her in?"

Wanda spat her mouthful of drink back into her glass. Gambit raised his eyebrows and his eyes flickered over to Wanda and then back to Pyro.

"If I could dress Rogue up, hmm? You'd have to be more specific. Like, what's the occasion?" Gambit asked, and he cocked his head to the side as he eyed Pyro. "And why Rogue?"

"Because I'm after a description for sexy everyday wear," Pyro replied slyly, not wanting to admit he had modelled a character after Rogue in his story. "And I know you have a crush on Rogue."

"Oh do you now?" Wanda asked, smirking at Gambit.

Gambit cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Catsuit," he said, deciding to end this conversation quickly.

"Catsuit?" Pyro repeated with a frown. "That's practically what she wears already."

"Well, it is sexy. It shows off her figure and prevents accidental skin contact," Gambit replied.

"How very practical of you, Remy," Wanda said, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

"Well, it won't do, not at all," Pyro said irritably. "Okay, pretend that she has control of her powers and can bare all the skin she wants. What would you get her to wear then?"

"I don't know. Never really thought about it," Gambit replied. "She has pretty good dress sense of her own; I really have no complaints about what she wears. Well, she do could with less make up."

"Oh come on, there must be something?" Pyro demanded. "I've been trying to pick out something sexy that I haven't already done."

"You often describe women's clothes?" Wanda asked.

"Hell yes," Pyro replied. "For one thing, it adds extra words to my word count. For another thing, clothes for my mages are fairly important. I mean, those protection spells only protect their bodies, not their clothes. So when they get into battles, if they're not careful their clothes can be torn to shreds. So there are-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Wanda cut in, setting her drink back on the counter. "Are you writing porn?"

Pyro stood up straight and pressed his hand to his chest, genuinely affronted. "I most certainly am not!"

"Suuuuuure," Gambit teased him with a great big smirk on his face.

"I am writing a romance novel," Pyro went on.

"Yes, of course, a 'romance' novel," Wanda repeated.

"It is!"

"By your own admission, clothes have a habit of being ripped to shreds in your story," Wanda pointed out.

"Which is why what clothes people choose to wear is important," Pyro insisted. "Look, there are two schools of thought here; there are the mages who decide to put on as many layers as possible when going into battle, some even train their bodies to be able to wear light armour. The thought process being that they reduce the chance of having their modesty stolen from them. Of course, since there are protection spells on the mages themselves, wearing protective clothes like light armour does seem a little redundant."

"Why don't they just put protection spells on their clothes?" Wanda asked.

"Because magic in this world doesn't work that way. There are rules-" Pyro began.

"He wants an excuse to write porn," Gambit said.

"Sounds like it to me," Wanda agreed.

"One of those rules is!" Pyro insisted loudly. "Objects cannot be imbued with magical properties. They can have wands and staves if they're made from magical wood, but magical cotton and magical sheep don't exist, so they can't make magical clothes."

"Right," Gambit said. "They don't exist because you don't want them to. Because you want to write porn."

Pyro gave Gambit a dark glare while Wanda snickered.

"Anyway, the other school of thought is the mages who choose to wear minimal clothing. They prefer to keep the places of their bodies most vulnerable to attack as clear of clothing as possible, so that any spells directed at them do minimal damage. It's not unusual for the men to go around bare chested, women to have their midriffs bare. Basically pull out any picture you've seen of a manga character or a comic book character that looks like their costume is painted on, and that's the kind of thing some of these guys wear."

Gambit and Wanda looked at each other. "Porn."

Pyro groaned. "It's not porn. I've only written one clothes-wrecking scene so far and it was essential to the plot!"

"Suuuuure it was," Wanda said with a smirk.

"So basically, what you were really asking me is that if I could dress Rogue in anything skimpy that needed to be glued on, what would it be?" Gambit asked Pyro with a smirk. "You know, I just don't know if I feel comfortable being roped into your little porno, Pyro."

"Porno Pyro," Wanda said. "I like it. Not in the good way."

"It's. Not. A. Porno," Pyro growled.

"I don't know that I believe him, do you?" Gambit asked Wanda.

"Nope, not in the slightest. The only way I could possibly be convinced otherwise was if I got to read it," Wanda said, and batted her eyelids at Pyro.

Pyro hesitated. Gambit and Wanda smirked at him in silence for a moment.

"Hesitation, definitely a—" Wanda began.

"It's only a first draft and I don't like people reading my first drafts," Pyro said.

"Uh huh," Gambit replied teasingly.

"Okay, fine, you can read it, but on two conditions, no, three," Pyro said. "You have to stop calling it porn, you need to help me with this outfit for the Green Sorceress, and you can't give my any feedback on it at all unless I ask for it. There's nothing that kills a muse faster than unsolicited feedback."

"The Green Sorceress?" Gambit repeated. "Is that because she wears green like Rogue does?"

"No it's because she specialises in dark magic, but I already have the Black Queen. That could get confusing," Pyro replied.

"Uh huh," Gambit said. "Okay, tell me about this Green Sorceress of yours. How does she fight?"

"Close up. She's good at hand to hand combat in addition to magic 'cause she can only use magic up close," Pyro replied. "The Black Queen secretly cursed her so that she can only use magic close up. See, even though the Green Sorceress is the Black Queen's right hand woman, the Black Queen is afraid of her because she can use magic without having to tap into ley lines. It's a very rare ability, and the only other sorceress in the story—at least at the moment—is the heroine, the Scarlet Sorceress."

"The Scarlet Sorceress?" Wanda repeated.

"Yes because she..." Pyro paused as he looked at Wanda, then groaned. "I knew that there was something familiar about that name."

"Mmhmm," Gambit said, smirked at Pyro while he banged his head on the kitchen counter. "So Wanda's in this story, Rogue's in this story, I'm starting to wonder if I'm in this story. Or if you're in this story."

"Shut up," Pyro grumbled in reply.

"Heh, okay, so Rogue, oh, I mean the Green Sorceress is a close-combatant. She wants to wear one of those tops that covers everything from here to here," Gambit said, putting one hand at his neck and another at his rib cage. "I don't know what they're called. But you don't want a boob window or a bikini top or anything like that because that'll just give her opponent something to grab onto."

"Really?" Pyro asked with interest. "I suppose it would. I didn't think of that."

Wanda raised her eyebrows as Pyro jotted down his notes. "Still not convinced that this isn't a... bodice ripper."

Gambit snickered. "You want flat-heeled boots too. I don't care how nice high heels boots look, they're completely impractical in a fight."

"You know this from experience, Remy?" Wanda asked him teasingly.

"I have fought with many women chere, and trust me, I don't care what anyone says about stiletto heels being a good weapon, flats are better," Gambit said. "Also, it doesn't matter how many muscles you have in your arm, what determines how hard you hit someone is your hips. Women have much wider hips than men, so they always get a better swing. Plus, lower centre of gravity. Women hand-to-hand combatants are terrifying."

Wanda laughed. "So how come you're always fighting Rogue?"

"I like being scared."

"And he has a crush on her a mile long," Pyro added. "Okay, so what about pants? Short skirt, briefs, what do you think?"

Gambit gave a shrug. "As long as it doesn't constrict her movement. How tall were you going to make the boots? I think briefs with thigh-highs and a skirt with anything shorter."

"Hmm... The Black Queen already wears knee-highs and .the Scarlet Sorceress wears thigh-highs…"

"Oh realllllly?" asked Wanda.

"Might go with knee-highs and the skirt," Pyro said, jotting this down n his notepad. "Okay, great. Thanks. I can work with this. Also, thanks for the insight of female hand-to-hand fighters."

"No problem. Don't forget to share the story with us."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll give it to you tonight."


	10. November 9

**November 9**

Wanda, mindful of the promise they'd made not to give Pyro "unsolicited feedback" came storming into the living room where she found Gambit watching cartoons while eating his breakfast; it was lunch time.

"Have you read his story yet?" she fumed.

Gambit glanced up at her and grinned. "Oh yeah. It's hilarious."

"Hilarious?" Wanda snapped. "He has me traipsing around in a glorified bikini!"

"Is that a bikini? I thought it was a couple of side-covers that just happened to cover your nipples and prevent you from leaving a snail trail everywhere," Gambit said with a smirk.

"I'm going to kill him."

"I think that qualifies as 'unsolicited feedback'."

"I'm going to kill him and I'm going to kill his muse."

Gambit chuckled lightly.

"I'm surprised you're taking this so well," Wanda went on, "since he has you going around in a magenta loin cloth."

"The similarities between me and Christophe are all superficial," Gambit replied with a shrug.

"He's a womaniser with magenta powers," Wanda pointed out. "And he uses a staff."

"He's also an exhibitionist with hazel eyes, who's always clean shaven and uses his staff to change clothes. There's been no sign of playing cards of any variety which I think we can all agree are my trademark, no trench coats, and staves appear to be a common weapon," Gambit pointed out. "Hmm, I think that if I were to offer some unsolicited feedback, I'd have him exchange the loin cloth for a dance belt. It's harder to grab a dance belt."

"Maybe that's the idea."

"Maybe."

"I can't believe you're not mad."

Gambit shrugged. "I'm sure you'll discover that the similarities between you and Alaina are superficial too. And once that happens, you can start having fun looking for stuff to mock. Because going on some of his outlandish descriptions of body parts, I'm sure any sex scenes are going to be utterly ridiculous."

Wanda's eyes widened. "Oh, I don't even want to think about Pyro writing sex scenes about me."

"So don't," Gambit replied simply. "Disassociate yourself from Alaina. I have a lot more in common with Christophe than you do with Alaina, and I'm having no problem disassociating myself."

"That's a little difficult when she gets called Alaina Scarlet and the Scarlet Sorceress!"

"She mostly gets called just 'Alaina' though," Gambit pointed out. "But hey, if it's bothering you that much, why not just ask Pyro to change the colour? 'Find and Replace' isn't exactly a difficult command to use."

Wanda pressed her lips together tightly as she considered that.

"Personally, I'm taking it as a compliment," Gambit went on. "I've had a big enough impact on him that I inspired a character in the story."

"Would you still feel that way if he gave you a tiny dick?" Wanda demanded.

Gambit burst out laughing and Wanda raised her eyebrows.

"The small penis rule," Gambit said, chuckling. "I forgot all about that."

"The what now?"

"The small penis rule. Basically you create a male character that is exactly like a real man, name and all, defame their character and give them a small penis because 'no man will ever want to admit he has a small penis so they won't sue'," Gambit replied with a smirk. "At least one person's actually done it. I remember reading about it."

"That must have been what Pyro was telling Pietro about the other day," Wanda said thoughtfully.

Gambit gave a shrug, not knowing what conversation she was talking about. "I'll take your word for it. Frankly, I don't really care if Pyro does give Christophe a tiny dick, I wouldn't have a case against him in court anyway. Like I said, the similarities between Christophe and me are superficial. I'm just gonna sit back, relax, and look for things to mock Pyro about."

"Like badly written sex scenes?"

"Exactly!"


	11. November 10

**November 10**

"Okay," Pyro said to himself as he paced back and forth in his room. "Alaina and Sunset and Roch are off doing their little study trip. Well, Christophe is with them too but it's only a matter of time before he takes off on his own to go do spy stuff and meet up with Mirabelle."

He smiled to himself in memory of the recent introduction of Mirabelle the Green Sorceress. The smile quickly faded as he returned to his pondering.

"He should probably leave before the Black Queen's messenger shows up. Although… hmm… that could be awkward…"

Pyro frowned and stroked his chin as he continued to pace.

"Would Roch leak to the messenger that Christophe is there?" he asked himself, was silent for a brief moment and answered: "No. No, Roch's first concern is the ley node. If and when he ever mentions Christophe was in her lands, it would be as an afterthought, probably when they were about to leave. Alright, so Christophe is safe until Roch has finished his studies then. So he can leave any time I feel like sending him off. That's good. Now, who would the Queen's messenger be? It would have to be someone important and someone she could trust explicitly, after all this is an international…thing…so avoiding war—or at least avoiding it happening prematurely is important."

He pinched his bottom lip and rolled it between his fingers as he paced a little more.

"The trust thing is important," he went on, releasing his lip and using his hand to point in the air instead. "Especially as it's not just a case of needing to touch base with a fellow conspirator. She also will want to ensure that whoever she sends won't decide to take advantage of the situation to conspire against her as well. And she can't go herself because people would question why the Queen is investigating a foreign mission when it's beneath her and that a task more suited to delegation anyway."

Pyro made clicking noises with his tongue as he did a couple more laps around his bedroom. He needed a suitable ambassador. Someone whose loyalty to the Black Queen would be without question. Someone smart, for the Black Queen wouldn't tolerate fools.

"Do they have to be a mage?" he asked himself.

The question gave him pause. There was no disputing the fact that the mages held the balance of power in this world. But did that automatically mean that there were no 'ordinary' people in positions of power? Did non-magical guards and soldiers exist?

"Of course they do," Pyro decided. "That's the great weakness of the average mage; if they were no ley lines around, it's difficult, if not impossible for them to tap into them to perform magic. That means they're vulnerable in those areas, so they need people trained in non-magical combat to guard their back. Sure, there are going to be some mages who are trained in physical combat as well as magical combat, but those guys will be the exceptions. This is why Roch's ley node research is so important and why the Black Queen is so interested in it. And it's also why she would prefer for a non-mage to be the ambassador because they have no stake in it. Well, aside from a potential end to their usefulness..."

He thought about that for a moment, then a big smirk appeared on his face.

"I should send the Black Queen's consort!" he said delightedly. "It's perfect. The Black Queen wouldn't want to have an heir with a powerful mage just in case the consort or the child ends up being more powerful than herself. Real jealous of her power she is. Heh heh heh. Plus she would want to go down in history as the most powerful mage; she'd probably delight in the idea of her heir not being as powerful as herself, might even prefer it if her daughter was a weak mage."

Pyro rubbed his hands together delightedly.

"Okay, so about this consort; smart, physically fit, possibly the leader of her royal guard. Hmm... He should be a good tactician too, if he's going to be in charge of the royal guard. Good swordsman." Pyro paused and grinned to himself. "Maybe I should poke one of his eyes out and call him Cyclops."

He chuckled at his little joke as he sat down at his desk and began to type up the introductory scene of the Black Queen's ridiculously handsome and intelligent consort.


	12. November 11

**November 11**

The Brotherhood house shook and Pyro scowled as his laptop shook on the desk. He quickly his the save shortcut and snatched up his laptop as the floor and furniture continued to shake and rattle. He hugged it to himself, despite how hot it had gotten.

After a moment, things settled down. Pyro began to relax and was about to put his laptop back on the desk again, when another earthquake started. Pyro growled and half fell trying to pick up his carry bag. Anxious, and stumbling the whole time, Pyro managed to get his laptop into the bag, along with the power cord.

The house stopped shaking once more, but Pyro wasn't risking it. He headed out of his room and downstairs towards the lounge room where there was much yelling going on between the younger residents. Pyro got their attention by throwing a fireball into the room with the help of his trusty lighter.

"Avalanche!" Pyro yelled. "Stop rocking the bloody house!"

Lance pointed accusingly at Toad. "Then you tell him to—"

"I'm not your bloody messenger and I ain't going to tolerate you starting a protection racket!" Pyro snapped. "Take your your stupid earthquakes outside or I'm going to roast you alive!"

"I couldn't have said it better myself," Wanda said from behind him, her dark gaze levelled at Lance.

"Babycakes!" Toad exclaimed anxiously. "It wasn't me! I was framed!"

"I don't care! And don't call me that," Wanda retorted, a hexbolt forming in her fist as she turned back on Lance. "And you! I'm sick and tired of having to repair this place all the time! One more busted pipe or broken electrical cord out of you and I'll give you that tiny dick Pyro was threatening Pietro with last week."

Lance's face with bright red. Pietro, Fred, and Toad started snickering, as did Gambit, who arrived behind Wanda. Pyro even managed a smile in spite of his earlier anxiety about his computer getting wrecked.

"Well, it wouldn't have happened if he—" Lance started to say,

"I don't want to hear it!" Wanda snarled. "This place is a dump, and it's your fault!"

"No it's not!" Lance insisted.

"It is a dump and it is your fault. You and your stupid quakes," Wanda insisted and her angry eyes laid on the the other three. "And yours too! You never clean up after yourselves! You just leave your trash lying all over the place and never clean up the dirty dishes or anything, and then wonder why we have mice and cockroaches and why the walls are falling down around us. It's _your fault_ we can't have nice things, and I'm tired of picking up after you slobs!"

"Hmm, yes, I think it's time for a change, no?" Gambit drawled, springing a deck of cards from one hand to the other as he lazed against the door frame. "I think maybe we should start a chore roster."

"You have to be kidding me," Lance sneered.

"You're not the boss of us," Pietro snapped at Gambit.

"You're right, I'm not," Gambit smirked and gestured towards Wanda. "I'd say she is."

All eyes fell on the only woman in the room. Wanda pursed her lips together, having some mixed feelings about the idea that she was the one in charge.

"You wouldn't want to earn your sister's wrath, now, would you?" Gambit went on, making a point of looking at the hexbolt formed in Wanda's hand. "Because by the looks of things, I'd say you're already well on the way."

No one said a thing.

"I think it's time for a little spring cleaning," Gambit said into the tense silence. "The whole house, upstairs and down. And it's about time the lawn got mowed too."

Reluctant to object but unwilling to agree, Pietro, Lance, Fred, and Toad said nothing. Gambit smirked.

"Maybe if you do a good job," Gambit went on slyly. "Wanda will even fix the TV for you."

Everyone looked at the TV which appeared to be intact and completely unharmed by the recent shakes.

"The TV's fine," Fred point out.

A charged card immediately hit the TV, blowing it to pieces. The boys gasped and complained in horror.

"You were saying?" Gambit said blandly.

There was a moment's pause, then some grumbling, and finally Lance, Pietro and Toad left, while Fred got started on cleaning up the lounge room. Wanda turned on Gambit as the hexbolt dissolved in her hand.

"That was rather presumptuous of you," she said. "I never agreed to fix the TV."

Gambit shrugged. "If you don't see fit to fix it, I'll just…acquire…a new one. Maybe. If they do manage to get the place spotless."

Wanda gave a disdainful sniff.

"Well," Pyro said, adjusting the shoulder strap of his carry bag. "I'm going to take off and write elsewhere for a bit. Somewhere safe. Maybe I can find a nice spot overlooking the X-Mansion."

Gambit chuckled and even Wanda managed a smile.


	13. November 12

**November 12**

Wanda sat down at her computer and opened up the blog that Pyro had started for the sole purpose of sharing his story. The blog was password protected because Pyro didn't want just anyone to be able to read it, but he didn't want to print off pages or create PDFs for Gambit and Wanda to read every day either.

Although Wanda had been initially irritated with Pyro's story because of the Scarlet Sorceress' dress, she was finding that the more she read, the less irritated she got with it. Sure, there was a lot of near-nakedness in this story but no one was ever referred to as a whore unless that was their actual occupation. Mages were always treated with respect and sometimes fear as the situation called for it.

Despite the fact that most of the secondary characters around the heroine were male, most positions of power were held by female characters. Something else that Wanda had noticed was that as the story progressed, tops for women tended to be more important from a support and practical standpoint rather than a modesty one.

It was as she was musing on this that Wanda discovered that Pyro's latest entry on his blog included an edit of couple of earlier scenes with a note that said "This was really bugging me and I couldn't wait until December to fix it." Instead of a sparring tutoring session between Alaina and Christophe ending in a shopping trip for more appropriate clothes, the shopping trip came first and then they had the sparring match. Alaina's insecurity had more to do with being dressed in clothes 'above the station of her birth' and overall the interactions between Alaina and Christophe were far more flirtatious. Wanda noted that the design of Alaina's clothing changed a little, giving Alaina's apparently huge breasts a bit more support than the original description provided.

Wanda almost wanted to see if she could make it. She did have some red thigh-high boots...

She finished reading Pyro's blog entry and after a moment's consideration, shot off an email to Rogue giving the link and password, and telling her she had to read this story. Pyro hadn't said anything about not telling other people about it.


	14. November 13

**November 13**

"I can't believe Pyro is actually writing a story," Kitty said over the dinner table. "I thought he'd be more interested in burning books than reading them."

"I know," Rogue replied as she piled up her plate with food. "I guess you really can't judge people by the way they laugh maniacally while burning stuff."

"Wait, what's this?" asked Kurt. "Pyro's writing a story?"

"Yeah, this is apparently Novel Writing Month," Kitty said. "I have a friend in one of my classes who's doing it."

"Wanda sent me a link to where Pyro's posting it online. You need a password though," Rogue said. "So if you wanna read, let me know."

"Are you two actually serious about this?" Bobby asked, eyeing them suspiciously. "It's not a prank is it?"

"No, it's not a prank," Rogue replied, giving him a pointed look. "Just because you're always pulling pranks on people doesn't mean everyone else is."

"What's it about?" Scott asked, having trouble with the idea that Pyro of all people would write a book.

"It's a romance novel," Rogue said the same time Jean responded with "It's a social commentary."

Everyone stopped and looked at Jean.

"You've read it?" Scott asked her.

"A social commentary?" Rogue repeated, looking at Jean like she'd grown a second head. "Seriously? It's a romance."

"Yeah, I really don't think there's anything all that deep going on here," Kitty said, and then clasped her hands together and widened her eyes as she put on a voice: "Oh Christophe! I know you're so hunky and gorgeous and sexy and stuff, but I don't think we could ever be together!"

Rogue giggled and clasped her hands together next to her chin while going on in a low voice. "So it's true then? You have your eyes on Sunset!"

"Yes!" Kitty replied, while grinning wildly. "I'm into that whole sexy librarian thing."

Rogue pressed her back of her hand to her forehead. "Alas! I will have to go back to sleeping around, which I hadn't actually given up doing anyway!"

Jean shook her head while Rogue and Kitty (and many of those watching) dissolved into laughter.

"He's making a statement about mutant/human relations," Jean said. "It's about racial superiority. Humans—the non-mages—are only useful for drudge work and cannon fodder, and they only continue to exist because the mages permit it. The only non-mage in a position of power is Fabian, the Black Queen's consort, and that's because the Queen is insecure and likes to surround herself with weaklings."

"I think you're reading too much into it," Rogue said. "I mean, I know he's written a lot, but it's blatantly obvious the story isn't over yet. He could well write something that contradicts what you think."

"Maybe, but just because he enjoys playing with fire doesn't make him stupid, no matter what we think of the company he keeps," Jean pointed out. "He's writing a novel. Yeah, it's rough, but overall he's actually doing a pretty good job. I'd wager he's even doing a much better job than some of us could at writing a novel."

"Pyro was always writing," Piotr spoke up then, and everyone turned to look at him, belatedly remembering that he had once been an Acolyte. "I even made cover art for him from time to time."

"You serious?" Kitty asked in surprise.

"Da," Piotr replied with a nod. "He also has a political blog. I do not believe that there is anything strange about the idea that this current story may be a social commentary."

An odd silence fell for a moment.

"So what we've learned today is that we shouldn't judge a book by its cover?" Scott suggested.


	15. November 14

**November 14**

His head broke the surface of the lake and his long wet hair clung to his body as pearls of water rolled down his chest. His brown eyes met a pair of green piercing ones. Christophe let his gaze wander over the woman standing before him on the shore and knew at once she was no ordinary mage. Her clothes were decidedly more practical than decorative and matched her eyes. With her were two attendants; one obviously a servant, and the other an archer, and he had his bow at the ready.

"And what do you think you're doing, swimming in the Black Queen's lake?" Mirabelle demanded.

"Just washing off some filth," Christophe replied loftily. "I figured the Black Queen wouldn't notice if she acquired some more."

The attendants bristled and Noel reached for one of his arrows.

"Stand down," Mirabelle said quickly, glaring at Noel for his hasty actions.

"He insulted—" Noel began.

"I know what he did," Mirabelle cut in, and turned her gaze back to Christophe who had made no move to leave the lake. "But you would simply be wasting your arrow. He's a mage, and only a mage would bother insulting the Queen in front of armed, loyal subjects. Of course, only a foolish one would do it in front of the Green Sorceress."

Christophe smiled lazily. "And is this the part where you join me in the lake? Perhaps to drown me for my insolence?"

Mirabelle smiled falsely back at him. The man in the water with his lean, muscular body, glistening in the sunlight, and his 'come hither' bedroom eyes was highly attractive. But then, so were all the rest.

"Perhaps I shall," she said. "Noel, Diane, returned to the road. I'll join you when I'm done."

"Yes milady," they said together.

Noel gave a scathing glare at Christophe, and followed Diane back up to the road with obvious reluctance in his step. As they disappeared from view, Mirabelle sauntered over to where Christophe had left his clothes to dry. She sat down and began taking off her own boots. Christophe raised his eyebrows in surprise; he hardly expected her to actually come in.

"Oh? You sure your precious Black Queen won't mind you dirtying up her lake by killing me?" he asked idly.

"Lake's dirty enough as it is," Mirabelle replied, dropping her boots by his. "I'm sure a little more filth won't hurt it."

…

Pyro leaned back in his chair and considered. What would happen next? Mirabelle would join Christophe in the lake. Christophe would continue to hit on her, of course, but Mirabelle did intend on killing him... So what would Christophe say or do to persuade her otherwise? And surely Christophe would know better than to let Mirabelle get into close range, when that was when the Green Sorceress was at her most dangerous? On the other hand, this was Christophe he was thinking about here; Christophe would probably be turned on by that.

A thought occurred to him, and his eyes lit up as he continued typing:

…

Mirabelle walked upon the surface of the lake, green magic dancing beneath he soles of her feet as she stroke towards him. Christophe watched as she approached and she found his gaze a little unnerving. Why did he not try to get away? Also although she did not need to tap into ley lines to perform magic, that didn't mean she didn't know were they were, and there weren't any close to here.

She released the magic beneath her feet and dropped through the surface of the lake. Even just inches away, he didn't do more than tread water. Even when green magic curled around his body, he didn't resist.

"Grant me one last request?" he asked of her, his eyes not straying from hers.

Mirabelle pulled him in close with a mere flick of her fingers. Her chest rubbed up against his.

"And what might that be?" she asked.

"A kiss."

The dance of her magic slowed as she eyed him warily. "A kiss?"

His eyes dropped to her full lips. "A kiss."

…

Pyro's fingers flew over the keyboard as he typed with wicked glee. After Christophe gave Mirabelle the kiss of her life she wouldn't want to kill him. Plus he was naked. Pyro kind of wanted Mirabelle to be naked to at that moment, but he didn't think it was likely Mirabelle would have just stripped off like that. Oh well, Christophe was still more than capable of giving her the time of her life without removing her clothes.


	16. November 15

**November 15**

Wanda sipped her coffee as she watched Pyro glare at his laptop in the cafe. His right fingers drummed in annoyance on the table and his forehead was furrowed in a frown. He started typing, and then Wanda smiled wryly at the sound of the backspace button being pressed rapidly.

"Writer's Block?" she asked.

"Huh?" Pyro asked, his head shooting up to look at her. "Oh, yeah. Typical mid-month slump. I'll get past it, I always do."

"Oh? How many times have you done this?"

"This is my sixth year. I always win, but yeah, every year I hit the mid month slump and wonder if this is going to be the year my streak breaks," Pyro replied and finally looked up from his laptop. "I will get past this block. I just have to keep trying."

Wanda nodded thoughtfully and set down her coffee as Pyro picked up his.

"You've been writing for six years huh?" she asked.

"I've been writing my whole life. That's just how many years I've done NaNo," Pyro corrected.

"Right. My bad," Wanda said, hesitated briefly, remembering how Pyro acted the last time the subject of publishing came up, and finally asked: "So, is writing something you do for yourself, or do you want to publish? Or have you already published something and held out on me?"

Pyro blinked in surprise and put his coffee back down.

"Well, I do have a political blog I update regularly. I have a really small readership and no one ever comments on anything, but it exists," Pyro replied. "But otherwise, well, I would like to get one of my stories published one day. I've been working on it, but I just haven't managed to write anything good enough to publish."

"You sure you're not just being your own worst critic?" Wanda asked.

"Heh, sometimes I am," Pyro replied with a wry grin. "And sometimes I spend too long on a story trying to get it to work, and I'm sure there have been times when I've given up too soon. One day. One day I will."

"Well, I look forward to it," Wanda said and picked up her coffee again as she looked out the window. "So, seen any sign of him yet?"

Pyro looked at her blankly. "Who?"

"Robertson," Wanda said. "You know, the guy we're supposed to be looking for?"

"Oh right," Pyro said slowly. "We're on a mission at the moment, aren't we?"

"Yes."

"Hmm," Pyro glanced down at his story, and Wanda saw the moment the proverbial lightbulb went off over his head. "Ooh plotbunny."

Wanda snickered to herself as Pyro started typing again.


	17. November 16

**November 16**

"And I am not to be disturbed," Mirabelle said shortly to Diane. "Is that understood?"

"Perfectly, mistress," Diane replied solemnly.

Diane backed away with a bow and Mirabelle entered her tent. As the flap closed behind her, her eyes fell upon the magic staff leaning on the main tent pole in the middle of her room. She knew that staff. She hadn't imagined the face she'd seen in the crowd as the general addressed the troops. She slowly turned her head and there he was, leaning casually against another tent pole.

"You shouldn't be here," she snapped at him even as the butterflies of joy danced within her to the rapid beat of her heart.

Christophe gave an idle shrug as he moved up to her and slid his arms around her waist. He looked deeply into her eyes.

"I had to see you again," he said.

Mirabelle caught her breath, his lips so very close to hers.

"We can't," she said. "If they catch us, we'll both be executed."

Christophe caressed her cheek tenderly. "It's worth any risk to be with you."

"You're crazy," she snapped at him, wanting to pull herself away but unwilling to part from his gentle touch. "Maybe the Council doesn't take treason very seriously, but the Queen does and—"

"The only treason I see here is betraying our own hearts," Christophe insisted.

He kissed her before she could make any further objection and all her resistance melted away. She was sure he must be using magic on her, so incredible was his the spark of his kiss and the heat of his fingers as they trailed over her body. She wanted to melt into his arms like butter, yet no matter how much her hands pressed into his every taut muscle she couldn't get any closer.

She wrapped her leg around him and he slid one hand into one of the many slits of her skirt to caress her thigh. Her chest felt strange pressed against his; firm, not soft and squishy as he had expected. He slowly lowered his other hand from her face and onto her chest, trying to figure this one out.

It was only then that Mirabelle realised there was a way for them to get closer. She pulled back only a little, just enough to pull off her shirt. Christophe raised his eyebrows upon seeing the way her breasts were wrapped up. That did explain not only the firmness, but also why they didn't seem to bounce as much as they should have. Mirabelle pulled off the wrapping, binding her breasts in place, and they spilled out much larger than Christophe had imagined.

As the wrapping dropped to the floor, Mirabelle looked up at Christophe with a determined look in her eye. She grasped his hand before he could move it himself and placed it firmly on her breast.

…

Rogue drew her breath as she continued to read Pyro's novel. Whatever she might say to the other X-Men, she was really enjoying his story, even if it was a little weird to be getting hot over something someone she knew had written.

She liked that she could identify with Mirabelle. At the same time felt like it was a little too easy to identify with the green mage whose powers only worked when she was in arm's reach, and had it bad for a charming magenta mage who she knew she definitely shouldn't be getting involved with. As Mirabelle pushed Christophe down on her bed, Rogue could picture herself doing the same with Gambit.

She chewed the inside of her lip as she read on.

...

Mirabelle ripped away his loin cloth, and gaped at the size of his enlarged member. She wrapped her hand around it as far as her fingers could reach.

...

Gambit snickered with a great big smirk plastered all over his face. Just how big was Christophe's 'enlarged member' supposed to be? And for that matter, if it was really that big, why didn't Christophe suffer from falling out of his loin cloth on a regular basis?

He continued to chuckle all the way through the scene, laughing so hard at one point he actually snorted. Gambit wiped the tears from his eyes as the sex scene mercifully came to an end. He was much relieved to be back at the actual story part of the story. As much as he enjoyed indulging in the occasional fantasy about Rogue, he preferred his with a more realistic sense of proportion and fewer descriptions involving volcanic eruption.


	18. November 17

**November 17**

"What's that look for?" Gambit asked of Wanda as he sat down with a bowl of popcorn in front of the new TV he'd bought.

"I read the latest entry on Pyro's blog," Wanda replied with a smirk and a twinkle in her eye.

"Ah. I haven't read it since I laughed my guts out at the comedy he wrote yesterday," Gambit replied. "Oh wait, I mean 'sex scene'."

He snickered to himself as he picked up the remote.

"I thought it was okay," Wanda said, feeling awkward as the movie Gambit had put in began to load.

"I thought it was comedy gold," Gambit said. "Soooo much material to mock Pyro with."

Wanda thought about that for a moment.

"Maybe you should hold off on the mocking until after this NaNo thing is over," she suggested. "Wouldn't want to kill the muse."

Gambit gave a shrug and hit 'play'.

"If it comes up, it comes up. If it doesn't, it doesn't," he said, paused, and then grinned at Wanda. "Maybe I should rephrase that."

"Rephrase what?" Pyro asked as he entered the room.

Gambit turned his head and grinned at Pyro. "We were just talking about your story. So, how's it coming? Mirabelle still having trouble getting her hand all the way around Christophe's _member_?"

Pyro pulled a face at Gambit as he sat down on the couch.

"Shut up," he said. "And I'm having a brain break."

"I'm pretty sure that Mirabelle's brain is probably broken after Christophe—"

"Remy," Wanda cut in, glaring at him. "Leave it alone."

Gambit just chuckled as the opening credits of his movie began. Pyro threw Wanda a grateful look and she smiled back.


	19. November 18

**November 18**

Pyro could picture it so well. Alaina would float down from the balcony, scarlet mist flowing from her shoulders and pooling at her feet. She would land lightly on the floor with her head up high. Her eyes would scan the room as the mist evaporated. All would part as she began to walk towards the tables where a certain man was sitting with his back turned to her. She would tap on on the shoulder and say "You're in my seat."

Out loud, Pyro chuckled.

All eyes turned to look at him, including Magneto's disapproving ones. It took Pyro a moment to realise that everyone in the meeting was staring at him and when he did he shuffled in his seat and cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"And what, pray tell, is so funny?" Magneto asked.

"Oh, it's uh, nothing," Pyro replied, unwilling to admit that his mind had drifted off during the dull-as-usual meeting and he had started thinking about his story. "Carry on."

"No, really," Magneto said direly, "we are all on the edge our of seats waiting for you to share the joke."

"Ahem, well," Pyro said awkwardly, his mind racing for a joke. "Three blondes walk into a bar. You'd think the third one would have learned."

There was a moments pause, and then snickering followed from some of the other members of the Brotherhood.

"I don't get it," Fred said, frowning.

Magneto gave Pyro a good long look, and then slowly turned his head to look at the rest of the group. Everyone silenced.

"As I was saying, we will be making our move on Friday…"


	20. November 19

**November 19**

Mirabelle bowed towards Queen Larissa, making sure as she always did, to stay beyond three feet from her.

"You have an assignment for me, my Queen?" Mirabelle inquired respectfully as she stood once more.

"I do," Queen Larissa replied, draped over her throne with her back against one arm and her legs over the other. "It has come to my attention that there's been a certain Council spy running around in my lands. He's been spotted heading towards Redwood, in the direction of the border."

Mirabelle was silent, a spark of fear in her heart.

"I need you to kill him," Queen Larissa went on, twiddling her ornate, dark wooden wand in her hand. "We need to make sure he doesn't get back and report whatever he's found out."

"Of course," Mirabelle replied agreeably. "However, it is closer from Redwood to the border than it is from here to Redwood. If he crosses, do you still wish me to pursue?"

Queen Larissa turned her head to glower at her master assassin. "As I said, we need to make sure he doesn't report whatever he's found. I don't care where you kill him, just kill him!"

"Understood, your Majesty," Mirabelle said. "And which spy is it, exactly, that I am pursuing?"

"Who do you think?" the Black Queen practically snarled. "The greatest of them all, the Magenta Master of Disguise!"

"Forgive my impertinence—" Mirabelle began to say as that spark of fear turned to dread.

"I most certainly will not."

"But how can we be certain he was the one who was seen? Being a Master of Disguise and all…"

Queen Larissa smirked. "Let's just say not everyone is as loyal to the Council as he is. But, if it turns out that the one headed to the border isn't the Magenta Master after all, then perhaps you should hunt him down especially anyway. Chances are he's already been sent here to spy multiple times and frankly I'm tired of his sticking him nose into everything."

…

Pyro pulled his hands back from the keyboard and eyed his document critically.

"Well," he said to himself, "I know I've always said I come up with my best stuff on the fly but seriously Mirabelle, you and Christophe are such divas. This story isn't about you, you know, it's about Alaina! And now, now Mirabelle, I have to go write a hot fight scene between you and Christophe that involves a lot of clothes being blown off and will end in sex. And all because you two just can't just be well behaved secondary characters. Noooo, you have to go steal the spotlight."

He sighed to himself and started the next scene—the fight scene which he would likely move elsewhere later. He needed to write it while it was on the brain.


	21. November 20

**November 20**

"You know something, Jean?" Kitty said as they changed in the locker rooms after another Danger Room session. "I think you might be right about Pyro's story being a social commentary."

"Ha! See?" Jean said smugly.

"Yeah," Kitty said, with a sly glance at Rogue. "I think that Pyro is commenting that he thinks Rogue and Gambit should get together."

"Ugh," Jean groaned.

"He is not," Rogue objected, not wanting to consider the possibility that Pyro might have been thinking of her and Gambit when he wrote Mirabelle and Christophe.

"Oh come onnnnn," Kitty said scornfully. "Christophe is the suave super-spy with magenta powers and uses a staff. While Mirabelle has green powers, is an accomplished hand-to-hand combatant, and dangerous as all get out."

"Any resemblance is superficial," Rogue insisted.

"I'm with Kitty on this one," Tabitha said wickedly. "Pyro totally ships you guys."

Rogue groaned.

"He ships you and writes lemons about you," Tabitha went on. "Yeah, that's right, Pyro ships you so bad he thinks about you doing it."

"Tabby," Jean scolded. "I'm sure you're right, Rogue."

"Thank you Jean."

"Seriously?" Kitty said. "You can see the resemblance between them, right?"

"Lots of writers draw from real life, Kitty," Jean said firmly. "And—"

"Yeah, and Pyro drew from Gambit and Rogue and decided to write filthy sex scenes about them," Kitty cut in with a giggle.

"Lots of sex scenes," Tabitha said delightedly. "There's what, three of them now?"

"Sounds about right."

"Ugh, I'm not Mirabelle," Rogue insisted. "And Christophe isn't Remy."

She had absolutely no intention whatsoever of admitting she had particularly enjoyed the scenes precisely because she could easily slip herself and Gambit into Mirabelle and Christophe's places.

"Oooh Remy is it?" Jubilee teased. "Someone's one a first name basis with a member of the Brotherhood, huh?"

"Hey, maybe Pyro has good reason to ship Rogue and Gambit," Kitty suggested. "He's saying; come on you two, you know you're hot for each other."

"Better be careful, Rogue," Tabitha said with a wicked gleam in her eye. "I hear his dick is so huge your hand can't even fit all the way around it."


	22. November 21

**November 21**

Wanda glanced up from her magazine as Pyro came in the front door, freshly returned from his Write In.

"Hey," she said, getting up to greet him before he could disappear up the stairs. "How'd it go?"

"Great," Pyro replied, pausing in his step to grin at her. "I got lots of words done. Haven't quite made it back on target yet, but I'm getting there."

"That's great," Wanda replied and joined him at his side. "So, I've a question for you, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Shoot," Pyro said as he continued on his way up the stairs.

"Well, Alaina is the Scarlet Sorceress because her magic appears a scarlet colour. Not red, scarlet, specifically," Wanda said. "And the same with Christophe; he's not pink or purple, he's specifically magenta. Sunset's magic is red-orange with a bit of yellow. Roch Grey's magic tends to run the light to dark grey spectrum. The Black Queen has black magic, literally."

"Right."

"Well, when you call Mirabelle the Green Sorceress," Wanda said, "does that mean that her magic comes out every shade of green?"

Pyro paused in his step once more and gave a frown. "I've always pictured hers as a darker green. I get what you're saying though. I don't think that Dark Green Sorceress really has the same ring to it."

"Sunset's name is Sunset," Wanda pointed out, turning to face him. "Say, what is his actual name, anyway?"

Pyro gave a shrug. "I haven't decided yet. I like the idea of giving him a little mystery. Plus I'm planning to have fun with his past in the sequel."

"There's going to be a sequel?"

"There's going to be a whole series," Pyro said, walking once more towards his bedroom. "A part of me wants to call it _The Rainbow Mages_ as a joke, but I think that sounds gay. As in homo-gay, not stupid-gay or happy-gay. It could give the wrong impression of what kind of romances are in this story."

Wanda laughed. "It could at that. You know, you don't have to go with Dark Green Sorceress. You could go with, um… Forest Green?"

"Sounds druidic."

"Olive Green," Wanda said, and when Pyro pulled a face went on with more suggestions: "Hunter Green."

Pryo frowned thoughtfully and stopped outside his door with his hand on the handle. "Hmmm."

"Umm, well, there's sea green. That's not really dark though, I don't think," Wanda said. "Fern green. Jade. Emerald."

"Ooooooooh," Pryo said, taking his hand off the door and looking at Wanda brightly. "What about this; Mirabelle can be the Green Assassin. I think the 'assassin' part sort of assumes a darker green. No one expects an assassin to be lime green."

Wanda gave a laugh. "Right."

"But either after she defects or after the curse is lifted, she changes her name to the Emerald Sorceress," Pyro said gleefully. "She throws off her old allegiance and her old life and starts anew."

"Ooooh, I like that," Wanda said. "That's a great idea."

"Thanks. It also means I have to do some editing… but fortunately this is the 'find and replace' kind of editing," Pyro said delightedly and opened his door. "Thanks Wanda. You're brilliant."

"All I did was ask a question…" Wanda said, feeling rather bashful at the unexpected praise.

"Exactly. I ask myself questions about my own stories all the times. Can't always tell what the important questions to ask are though," Pyro replied.

"Well, in that case, may I ask another?"

"Sure."

"Is Sunset you?"

Pyro was quiet for a moment as he considered that and looked away from her. It was pretty clear in what he'd written so far that Sunset was Alaina's love interest, even though things hadn't gotten romantic between them yet. He was all too aware, however, that Wanda figured Alaina was supposed to be her because of their common colour.

"Sunset wasn't intended to be me," he said finally, "but he's probably the closest thing I've written to a self-insert. I guess… the kind of character I needed him to be resulted in him acquiring a lot of my traits."

"Oh yeah?" Wanda asked, leaning in towards him slightly. "Well, I really like him. In fact I would have to say Sunset is definitely my favourite character. Next to Alaina, that is. I definitely ship them."

Pyro raised his eyebrows and shuffled his grip on his laptop as he looked at Wanda.

"Oh, uh, you do, huh?" he asked, a little nervously. "Well, it's a good thing they have an epic romance ahead of them."

"Oooh, an epic romance huh?" Wanda replied, smiling mischievously at him. "That's the best kind."

"Heh heh heh, yeah, I think so too," Pyro said and cleared his throat, then lifted his laptop a little. "So, yeah. I should go. Have lots more writing to do."

"Yeah," Wanda said, looking a little disappointed. "But hey, if you ever decide that you want to ask any other questions, I'm always available."

"Oh, uh, right. Thanks for the offer," Pyro replied.

As he shut the door behind himself he wondered what in the world just happened. Wanda was just talking about the characters… right? She hadn't been flirting with him… had she? Pyro shook his head. It must have been innocent. After all, he was writing a romance. He was probably just seeing flirting going on anywhere.

Wanda pulled a face at the closed door, uncertain if Pyro was dense of if she was just really bad at this flirting business.


	23. November 22

**November 22**

Rogue's eyes narrowed as they laid upon Pyro, who was busy burning things down.

"You!" she exclaimed, and stalked towards him, completely bypassing Gambit whom she would normally fight when the X-Men and the Brotherhood clashed. "Pyro! You sick son of a bitch!"

Pyro did a double-take as he looked back at Rogue, the scene he was acting out with his flames momentarily faltering. What did Rogue want with him? Shouldn't she be flirt-fighting with Gambit by now?

"What?" Pyro asked.

"What, he says," Rogue retorted sarcastically. "I'm going to kick your perverted little ass, you sick little bastard. In what universe did you think it would be okay to write porn about me and Gambit?"

"What in the world are you talking about?" Pyro asked as he brought up a wall of fire between them. He wasn't stupid enough to let Rogue anywhere near him. "I've never written porn about you and Gambit."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Rogue said, stopping just short of the fire wall, feeling the heat in her face and seriously considering jumping over it. "I mean 'Mirabelle' and 'Christophe'. Yes, I can _totally_ see why you might change our names. You wouldn't want us to _get upset_ or anything."

Pyro knew letting people read his first draft was a mistake. He never should have started that blog, even if it did make for a good way to back up his novel.

"You're not Mirabelle," Pyro insisted, having to yell a little to be heard over the crackle of his flames. "Okay, I admit I might have drawn a little from you when I was creating her but she was a last minute addition to the story and I didn't want to waste time trying to flesh out her character when I was behind in my word count and needed to—"

"I don't care!" Rogue yelled at him, leaping over the fire wall in her anger. "You—"

But that was as far as she got for Pyro sent a blaze of fire towards her, and her speech was cut off as she lifted her arms to protect her face.

"Oh that's real mature!" She yelled at him as soon as the blaze was clear. "Can't bear to take responsibility for humiliating me so you try to set me on fire. Or were you just aiming for my clothes so you could have your little naked-battle fantasy?"

"This may come as a shock to you, Rogue, but it's well within my power to burn you to a crisp right here, right now," Pyro retorted, throwing more fire at her, but using a tight control on the flames. "But I pull my punches because believe it or not, I don't actually enjoy burning people alive. You notice how neither your clothes, nor your hair, nor any other part of you is burning right now? Yeah, that's because I'm being nice."

"Oooh," Rogue said sarcastically, determined to get closer so her fists could do the talking, with sweat dripping down her face from the heat. "Is this the part where you expect me to thank you? Or are you going to extract gratitude by expecting me to just let you continue writing your porn about me!"

"It's not porn! It's a romance novel!" Pyro yelled back angrily. "And forgive me for wanting to create a world where I could use my powers freely and not have to pull my damn punches all the damn time! I would think you of all people would understand not wanting to be constricted!"

"You had better not seriously be comparing my mutation to yours!"

"Why not? Look at you! You're all covered up. You pull your punches, just like I do."

Another blaze of fire went off in her face and Rogue coughed a little from the smoke.

"I'm going to get over there and kick your ass!" she yelled at him.

"Oh yeah?" Pyro shouted back. "With or without gloves?"

He formed a ball of fire in his hand and threw it as if he was a mage from his novel, throwing a fireball at an enemy. The 'fireball' hit Rogue's arms as she raised them to protect her face again, only this time she felt them burn her clothes. Later she would marvel over the fact that while her sleeves and gloves burned, her skin only ended up with a sunburn-like scorching. At that moment, however, Rogue was more interested in getting the fire out. She would have loved to have dropped to the ground but pretty much everything around her was ablaze.

"What's wrong?" Pyro taunted her, throwing another fireball. "Afraid I might burn you alive?"

Rogue would not admit that was the case. Indeed she was too angry at that moment to even consider the idea. The second fireball hit her and her clothes burned away. There was no way for her to put the blaze out, not unless she absorbed Pyro.

She ran for him, ignoring all fires as irrelevant; it was a little late to be worrying about catching on fire now. Her sweat seemed to evaporate right off her body, as easily as her clothes were falling away.

Pyro, who had been continuing to back off, hit a wall and found himself with nowhere to go as Rogue ran towards him. He attempted to move to the side, only for Rogue to ram her whole body into him, pushing him painfully back into a wall. His control over his fires faltered very briefly—not enough to do any harm—as he realised that Rogue was standing in front of him completely naked.

As if in slow motion, Pyro saw Rogue draw her arm back. In that moment he realised the truth of what Gambit had told him about hips were more important to how hard a punch was than the muscles in the arm; in drawing back her arm, Pyro could see that Rogue pulled back with her hips as well as her shoulder. In that moment he knew it was going to hurt. In that moment, he was absolutely terrified.

Pyro couldn't imagine why Gambit actually enjoyed fighting and being scared by someone like Rogue. He was clearly insane.

He saw Rogue's fist swing towards him in line with the only part of his skin that was visible, for he was fully clothed and his helmet only partially covered his face. Rogue's fist was just the right size to fit through the gap. Her fist came closer…

Then her hand opened up and her palm slammed into the wall next to him. Rogue smirked, seeing the expression of stunned surprise on his face.

"I literally pull my punches, sugar," she replied hotly.

And without another word, she leaned forward and kissed him. Pyro was far too stunned to resist and quickly blacked out.

When Rogue had control of his powers, she went out dousing all his fires, of which there were many by that point. It was only when they were all out that she realised she was standing on front of everyone as naked as the day she was born. Well, other than the redness on her skin which indicated she would be either be borrowing Logan's healing factor or having a nice cold shower when she got home. She looked around uncomfortably, hoping to find a way to cover up, or at least to get to the Blackbird before too many people saw her.

Just as she was eyeing off escape routes and hoping that everyone else was more interested in their own fights than in hers, Gambit approached. She pulled herself up tall, determined not to let him realise how embarrassed she felt right now. She frowned a little when she realised he was taking off his long trench coat.

"Here," he said, holding it out to her while keeping his eyes focused on hers.

Rogue blinked in surprised and slowly reached out for the coat. "Umm, thanks?"

"Return it to me when you have a chance," he said with a half shrug and then turned away to check on Pyro while she put the coat on.

"Sure," she replied.

It had taken all Gambit's self-restraint not to ogle her when he had the chance, but the middle of the battlefield wasn't exactly the setting he had in mind when he'd envisioned seeing Rogue naked. It wasn't much of an improvement seeing her in his coat though; she just looked sexy for a whole other reason.

After checking Pyro was more-or-less okay, Gambit picked him you, fireman's style over his shoulder. As he straightened, he saw Jean running over to join Rogue.

"Rogue, are you okay?" Jean asked. "Why are you wearing Gambit's coat?"

"I need a new uniform," Rogue replied, holding her head up high as she began striding for the Blackbird. "Preferably something fireproof."


	24. November 23

**November 23**

Rogue lifted her free hand to knock on the Brotherhood door, feeling oddly nervous about it. There was no response immediately, and after about a minute, Rogue knocked again. She was just considering knocking a third time, when Pietro opened the door. A sly smirk appeared on his face when he realised it was Rogue standing here.

"Hiiii Rogue," he said, making a point of looking her up and down. "What brings you here? Planning on re-enacting more scenes from Pyro's story?"

"Yes," Rogue replied irritably. "You strip and then I'll kiss you."

Pietro opened his mouth to respond but no words came out.

"Is Gambit here?" Rogue asked when Pietro hesitated. "I just want to return his coat."

Pietro glanced down at Gambit's coat, which was slung over Rogue's arm. His smirk reappeared and he again opened his mouth to say something, but once again thought better of it.

"Yeah, sure," he said. "Come on in."

He opened up the door wider for Rogue to pass, and then called up the stairs as she stepped inside.

"Hey Remy! Your girlfriend the stripper is here!"

Rogue reached out to punch Pietro, but he zipped out of range before her fist could connect. Inflamed, and not the slighted bit deterred by the fact that Pietro had super speed and she didn't, Rogue chased Pietro up the stairs.

"Come back here so I can wring your little neck!" she snarled.

"Hmm, let me think about that?" Pietro said while taking on a pondering pose next the head of the stairs. "Umm, no."

He ran down the hall. Rogue chased him. Gambit opened up his door and Rogue ran right into him. Pietro stopped running so he could point and laugh while Gambit tried to figure out how Rogue magically appeared in his arms.

"Hey..." Gambit said slowly.

"Um, hi," Rogue replied awkwardly as she attempted to disentangle herself, knowing that Gambit probably had the best view of her naked body the day before. "Sooo... just came by to drop off your coat."

"Oh, thanks," Gambit said, and gestured into his bedroom rather than taking his coat. "Wanna come in? You've come this far."

"Yeah Rogue," Pietro said, zipping up behind her. "Why don't you go in and make yourself at home? A little more roleplaying, perhaps?"

Rogue threw her fist behind her head in an attempt to smash Pietro in the face. Pietro dodged out of the way in plenty of time to miss Rogue's fist, only to get it in the stomach with an exploding playing card he hadn't seen coming.

"Oh ow," Pietro complained, clutching his scorched stomach.

"Sure," Rogue said to Gambit, "why not?"

Gambit smiled.

"Great," he said, and closed the door after them as they entered his bedroom.

Rogue looked around his room and set his coat down over the back of the chair by his desk. It was tidier than she had been expecting, but could hardly be considered pristine.

"Thanks for the loan," she said, already wondering why she had agreed to come in.

"Don't thank me," he replied, moving up to her but staying short of 'too close'. "I did it for purely selfish reasons."

Rogue blinked in surprise at his response and lifted her head to meet his eyes. They were gazing into hers in a way that took her breath away.

"Oh?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, wrapping both his hands around one of hers and drawing it to his lips. "I was jealous. I was hoping that one day you'd choose to honour me with that glorious vision," he kissed her hand, "and me alone."

There was something in his tone and the intense way he looked at her that sent heat rushing through her. Rogue bit her bottom lip as she attempted to collect her thoughts.

"Is that so?" she asked, not quite meeting his eyes. "And what makes you think that I would ever honour you with... that?"

"I was planning on courting you properly, of course," Gambit replied, tendering caressing each individual finger. "This whole 'opposite sides' business was making asking you out on a first date a little difficult though."

"Uh huh," Rogue said, moving in the remaining distance between them as her heart danced inside her chest. "And how do I know this isn't some fairy tale you made up in the last twenty-four hours? Timing seems a little fishy, if you ask me."

Gambit dropped one of his hands to wrap it around her waist.

"Well," he said, after planting another kiss on her hand. "I suppose you could always absorb me."

"Oh? I could, could I?" Rogue inquired challengingly, not expecting that response at all. People rarely invited her to let her absorb them.

"Mmhmm," he murmured in reply, his lips dangerously close to hers.

Rogue licked her own lips as her eyes landed on his.

"Well," she said slowly, "in that case, we should probably move this to the bed."

"Sure," Gambit replied, his voice low and husky with his agreement. "We wouldn't want me getting hurt when your kiss takes my breath away."

"Yeah, that."

He hid his smile as he drew Rogue to his bed and kept his eyes on her as he laid down on it. Rogue sat down beside him wondering at her own daring at suggesting such a thing. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as her gaze fell on his lips.

"Whenever you're ready ma chere," he said, his hand sliding up her side with gentle care. "All I ask is that, if you like what you see, you'll permit me to take you out to dinner tonight?"

"I think we could arrange something."

Slowly, she lowered her head towards his, part of her wanting to know, but most of her wanting to draw this out as long as possible. She wanted to savour the moment. She loved feeling his hand on her side and didn't want that to stop.

He licked his lips almost seductively as she drew nearer and resisted the urge to kiss her sooner. He knew it would knock him out, but he didn't care. All he knew was that he finally had Rogue in his arms.

Her lips pressed against his. Her powers kicked in almost immediately and Rogue pulled away again after a moment. There was no doubt at all that he felt the same way about her that she did about him, and if anything he was annoyed with himself for not saying something well before yesterday happened.

She touched his face tenderly with her gloved hand and decided to wait until he'd woken up before she left. She laid down beside him and rested her head on his pillow with one hand draped across his chest. She felt a little giddy doing so after all the times she'd spent day dreaming about him and all the times she had a case of "lingering fingers" while fighting him whenever the X-Men and the Brotherhood clashed.

A soft groan emerged from Gambit's lips and his eyes blinked open. He turned his head and smiled to see that Rogue was still with him.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," he replied, and asked with just a hint of nervousness. "So, saw anything you liked?"

Rogue paused for just a moment, then moved on top of him, straddling him, much to the surprise of both. She rested her head on her arms, which were folded across his chest.

"Yeah," she said. "I saw plenty I liked."

Gambit smiled and ran his hands down her sides. "Yeah? Anything in particular?"

Rogue ran one of her fingers in a circle on his chest.

"Well," she said slyly. "I noticed that when we fight, you have lingering fingers too."

Gambit looked a little embarrassed for a moment before saying: "Too? Ah, so it wasn't just wishful thinking."

Rogue shook her head with a smirk. "No, it was not. So, wanna put us both out of our misery and make out?"

"Even before our first date?" Gambit asked her teasingly.

"We already had our first date."

"We did?" Gambit asked, looking confused.

"Sure, don't you remember that time we had Jambalaya in New Orleans?" Rogue replied.

"If I recall correctly," Gambit said slowly, "I kidnapped you and deliberately took you somewhere I knew the Rippers would attack us."

"What?" Rogue said, batting her eyes at him. "Dinner followed by a little strenuous exercise isn't your idea of a good date?"

Gambit laughed heartily.

"You even gave me a little... love token after," Rogue went on wickedly.

"Love token?" Gambit repeated, then realised what she was referring to: "Oh, the Queen of Hearts."

"Yeah. I'm afraid I don't have it any more though. Pyro burned it yesterday along with my clothes."

Gambit raised his eyebrows. He had no idea Rogue would actually carry the card around with her.

"Oh really?" he asked.

"Yeah. Guess where I was keeping it."

Gambit opened his mouth to respond only to be interrupted by Rogue putting her gloved finger to his lips. She grinned wickedly at him.

"Guess with your hands."


	25. November 24

**November 24**

Pyro leaned his head on his left hand while he idly roamed the NaNoWriMo forums with his right. He was stuck and he hated being stuck. He especially hated that his fight with Rogue should have given his muse plenty of fodder for future scenes, but instead the opposite seemed to have happened.

This was why he hated unsolicited feedback.

There was a light knock at his door. Pyro gave a sigh and right-clicked on the next post that looked interesting to open it in a new tab.

"What?" he asked.

"It's Wanda, can I come in?"

"Whatever."

Wanda opened the door and closed it behind her. Pyro continued scrolling through the forums.

"Hey," she said as she walked over. "How's the story coming?"

"It's not."

"Writer's Block again?"

"Yep."

"I'm sorry," Wanda said, peering over his shoulder. "Anything I can do to help?"

Pyro just gave a long suffering sigh in response.

"Well," she said, realising that was all the reply she was going to get. "I guess this explains why there wasn't anything new on the blog yesterday—"

"I'm not updating it any more," Pyro cut in.

"Oh."

"Never should have let people read it in the first place," he went on irritably. "Muse killers."

"Oh... right..." Wanda said slowly. "I guess I offer you an apology. I kinda was the one who gave Rogue the link and password."

Pyro didn't reply.

"So if there's anything I can do to make it up to you..." Wanda trailed off and sighed.

She felt a little bit bad about everything. She didn't imagine Rogue would get so upset, although in hindsight Wanda realised that Mirabelle had far more raunchier scenes than Alaina had so far.

"I didn't realise you and Rogue were that close," Pyro said, his eyes still on the forums as he opened more links up.

"We just have similar tastes in books and movies and stuff," Wanda replied with a shrug. "We bumped into each other going to see the same movie last year and it sort of spiralled from there."

"Hmph."

More silence fell. Finally, Wanda placed her hands on his shoulders.

"How about I take you out to lunch?" she asked before he could tell her to rack off. "We can go anywhere you want, my treat. A change of scenery's bound to help the muses, right?"

Pyro thought about it for a moment, then gave a shrug. He may as well take her up on her offer. He wasn't getting anything done at the moment.

"Okay," he said.


	26. November 25

**November 25**

"But Logan's just going to have to get over it," Rogue said to Wanda over coffee. "Remy and I decided we're not going to worry about what side we're on."

"Hmm," Wanda replied, lifting her mug to her lips. "You may have to deal with some conflicts of interest there. I mean, how often do we end up fighting each other?"

"So we just won't fight each other," Rogue answered with a shrug.

Wanda's eyes glittered at Rogue. "Oh? I would have thought you'd relish the chance to 'fight' each other."

"Well, as much fun as it would be taking each other out of the battle, I think I've had quite enough of the Mirabelle/Christophe comparisons," Rogue said with a note of disgust in her voice.

"Aww but they got you together," Wanda said.

Rogue glared at her. "Did not."

"Next thing you know, you'll be defecting and rejoining the Brotherhood."

"Keep dreaming."

Wanda chuckled.

"I think you and Remy should join the X-Men," Rogue said, smirking at her.

"Now who's dreaming?" Wanda replied.

"Oh, that's right," Rogue continued to smirk, "that's you, about Pyro, I mean, Sunset."

"I am ssooo not going to dignify that." Wanda tried to hide her blush by taking a drink.


	27. November 26

**November 26**

Pyro's eyes flew open as he woke, his mind filled with all sorts of wonderful ideas. One, in particular, which was absolutely brilliant, even if he did think so himself. Eagerly, he kicked the covers away and prepared to make a beeline for his computer when he realised something: This was the last week of NaNoWriMo, he only had 5 days to write 13000 words, and the brilliant idea he had was for a completely different story.

"Okay Pyro," he said to himself as he switched his computer on. "You're just going to have to set this idea aside for now and attend to it in December, which really isn't all that far away, so it isn't that much of a wait. If you want to win NaNo again this year, you're going to have to focus on getting this story done first."

He sat down at the computer and opened up the file with his NaNoWriMo story in it. He reread the last paragraph and tried to think about what was going to come next, and not about the wonderful, brilliant, amazing idea that was in his head.

No words came to him and with a sigh he decided to check Tumblr and his email. Then he attended the call of nature, and feeling hungry, went donstairs for breakfast.

Upon his return, he still couldn't find focus. This other story desperately wanted him to write it.

"Well, maybe you should at least write down the idea," he said to himself as he opened up a new document. "You know how these plotbunnies are. If you don't act on them immediately, they keel over and die."

Deciding it was the right choice to make, Pyro started on the new story. It started off as him just writing down note, but somehow ended up writing the first chapter before he had the idea out of his system.


	28. November 27

**November 27**

Wanda was somewhat disconcerted when she came home to find Pyro in the kitchen with his laptop, banging his head on the counter.

"Umm, story still giving you trouble?" she asked as she entered.

Pyro lifted his head which his frazzled orange hair, and looked at her.

"It's Christophe and Mirabelle!" he said, pointing accusingly at the screen. "They're a pair of divas!"

"Oookay," Wanda replied slowly.

"Every single time I stop to think up a scene for Alaina, you know, the main character, these two little attention seekers make it all about them!" Pyro threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. "And worse, every time I write them, it ends the same way: sex. It's like they're not happy unless they're constantly banging each other!"

"But at least it's more words added to your word count, right?" Wanda asked, leaning on the bench beside him.

"I don't want to fill up the rest of my story with stupid sex scenes," Pyro insisted. "I have a main plot I'm trying to get back to, not to mention the romance between Alaina and Sunset. Besides, I really don't think that a relationship that revolves around having sex all the time is really that healthy. I should break them up somehow. Maybe have one of Christophe's exes show up—See what I mean!"

"Uh," Wanda said uncertainly as Pyro exploded before her eyes again.

"Every time I turn around, those two little buggers are looking to make the story all about them!" Pyro said and shook his fist at his laptop. "Well, this story isn't about you! This is about Alaina and the fact that the guy she considers a mentor is not only a traitor, but is planning on killing her in order to create a new ley node."

"Wait, Roch is going to do what now?" Wanda asked, her eyes wide. "But I thought—"

"Ah ha!" Pyro said jubilantly. "You thought he was the typical old grey wizard good guy mentor dude, didn't you? Like Gandalf, or whats-his-face from The Belgariad. But is was all a diabolical ploy. Roch has been conspiring with the Black Queen the whole time."

Pyro laughed wickedly and Wanda grinned at him.

"Okay," she said. "I admit I didn't see that coming."

"Of course you didn't," Pyro said. "I've stopped being able to drop clues because Christophe and Mirabelle can't stop banging each other for two minutes."

"You talk about them like they have minds of their own," Wanda said. "Why don't you just—"

"They do have minds of their own," Pyro insisted. "Don't start imagining that just because I invented them means I have any control over them. All the fleshed out, 3D characters write themselves. And occasionally become attention seeking divas who have to hog all the attention."

"Okay then," Wanda said slowly, thinking it sounded crazy. "Well, does this mean Alaina needs more fleshing out?"

"Hmm? Oh, no Alaina writes herself just fine," Pyro dismissed. "She's just not a diva. I swear, if Christophe and Mirabelle were real, they'd be into making sex tapes."

Wanda paused for a moment, then grinned slyly at Pyro: "So, that's what you think Remy and Rogue would get up to?"

Pyro snorted. "Not likely. But only because Remy is allergic to being caught on camera."

Wanda chuckled. Pyro looked towards his laptop wistfully and sighed. He picked up his cup of coffee only to discover it was empty and started going about making more.

"Isn't it a little late for coffee?" Wanda asked when she realised what he was doing.

"It's the last week of NaNo and I have to write 12,500 words in 4 days. Today I've only written 378," Pyro said irritably. "It's never too late for coffee."

Wanda walked over and put her hands on his before he could get too far in the coffee making.

"I don't think that making yourself stay up when you're stuck is going to help," she said.

"Probably not but—" Pyro began.

"Come on,how about we go back to your room, and I tuck you into bed?" Wanda suggested.

"It might be late for coffee, but it's definitely too early to go to sleep," Pyro protested.

"Who said anything about sleeping?"

Pyro eyed her for a moment. "Okay, are you flirting with me? Because you keep saying stuff and I keep thinking that you're flirting only I can't tell because I'm writing a romance so I'm pretty sure I'm seeing flirtatious behaviour everywhere…"

"Yes I'm flirting," Wanda replied, feeling a little embarrassed. "Or trying to. I was living in a mental hospital for half my life, I'm not really sure how this flirting thing is supposed to work."

"Okay, good, I wasn't imagining things then," Pyro said, sounding relieved. "Umm, sure, we can go back to my room, if you really want. I'll just grab my laptop…"

"Great," Wanda said, with a sudden flash of nerves as she hadn't actually expected things to go this far and was now wondering what exactly they were going to do up there.

Nevertheless, she followed Pyro back to him room. He put his laptop down on the desk and then turned his attention to Wanda, feeling just as nervous as she was. He wasn't in the habit of 'bringing a girl back to him room'. His relationships tended to fail before they got that far.

"So, umm," he said slowly, trying to figure out what Sunset would do. He already knew what Christophe would do, and he wasn't prepared to go there just yet.

"So," Wanda replied, wishing he would take the lead here. He was the romance writer, he should know what he's doing. She sure didn't.

Pyro was about to open his mouth and make a joke about how awkward things had gotten all of a sudden, when Wanda grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him to her. There was but a moment's hesitation and then her lips pressed against his. Pyro kissed her back eagerly. His arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her in closer. Wanda cupped his face with one hand while the other kept a hold of his shirt.

The kiss ended abruptly, Pyro's eyes alight with glee.

"Oh, I've got it!" he said excitedly. "It's perfect!"

He kissed her again, very quickly, and then turned back to his computer, chuckling wickedly.

"Oh yes, Roch, you're going to get it now," he said delightedly.

Wanda remained standing, having hardly moved at all, and stared at the back of Pyro's head trying to figure out what just happened. One moment they were kissing and then he was back to working on his story. She was pretty sure that kissing did not normally lead to story writing. She opened her mouth to comment, and then decided she should just go for now. After all, she wasn't entirely sure she was prepared for the things she thought kissing did generally lead to.


	29. November 28

**November 28**

Gambit knocked on Pyro's door, well aware it was at his own peril.

"Go away! I'll flambé you! I mean it!" Pyro yelled.

"Sure you will. Look, it's lunch and we're all waiting for you," Gambit called back through the door.

"Eat without me."

"It's Thanksgiving!"

"I don't care about your stupid little geographically-specific holiday. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving in Australia. There were no pilgrims or… or… or whatever other historically significant stuff this holiday's supposed to be about," Pyro replied. "There's a lot of food and something about a turkey and… that's all I know. Now, go away, I have a lot of writing to do. I'm 12,000 words behind. I have to write 4,000 words today, tomorrow, and Saturday if I want to make the deadline."

"Well, I think you'll find it difficult to write on an empty stomach," Gambit said. "Just come down and stuff your face, and then go back to hiding in your room. You never know, you might find some more words hiding in the turkey I cooked."

Gambit waited but got nothing but silence for a reply.

"Come on, Pyro," he said again. "We're going to end up with stacks of leftovers and trust me when I say it'll be nicer hot. Plus everyone's here, even Magneto—"

"What the heck is Magneto celebrating Thanksgiving for? He's not even American!"

"I think it's more of a case of: even Magneto likes my cooking," Gambit answered. "Seriously, Pyro, you've gotta eat sometime. May as well come down now."

Pyro sighed loudly. "You're not going to stop pestering me until I do, are you?"

"It's either that or say 'I told you so' when the leftovers don't taste so good reheated," Gambit replied.

"Ugh fine," Pyro replied, and Gambit head him walk to the door. "But I'm just there for the food."


	30. November 29

**November 29**

Pyro was just exiting the bathroom after answering the call of nature when he spotted Wanda leaving her room with a wheeled suitcase at her side.

"Are you going somewhere?" he asked with a confused frown.

Wanda glanced over at him and curled her hand around the handle of the suitcase. "Umm, yeah. I have a solo mission to attend to. We talked about it at the meeting."

"What meeting?"

"The one we had on Wednesday," Wanda said, eyeing him strangely.

"Oh, that meeting," Pyro said and gave a shrug. "I think I tuned the whole thing out."

"Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me. This story's been all you've been thinking about lately," Wanda said.

She hadn't forgotten his reaction after their first kiss. She still wasn't sure what the best response was. Did she bring it up, or did she pretend it didn't happen?

"Heh, yeah, I guess I have a pretty one-track-mind something," Pyro replied ruefully. "When will you be back?"

"Sunday. So I'll be able to help you celebrate your win," Wanda said. "How is the story going, anyway?"

Pyro sighed. "I've written a little over two thousands words so far, but I need to write another six thousand today and tomorrow to get there."

Wanda nodded. "Well, I'm sure you'll make it. You've come this far."


	31. November 30

**November 30**

Pyro pressed the power button on his laptop.

Nothing happened.

He tried it again. Still nothing.

He tried it a third time. Still there was no sign of life.

Panic began to rise. He held the button down in an attempt to force it. He tried plugging it into the power and unplugging it. None of the attempts resulted in the laptop turning on.

"Remy!" Pyro yelled, clutching his laptop under his arm as he ran out. "Hey Remy!"

He beat on Gambit's door, but there was no response. The he went running downstairs, still calling Gambit's name. Gambit peered out of the kitchen doorway as Pyro stepped on the floor in the foyer.

"What?" Gambit asked.

"Please tell me you can get my computer to turn on," Pyro said earnestly, holding out his laptop to him.

Gambit took hold of the laptop and looked at it dubiously. "Uhh…"

"It's the last day of NaNo! I have to finish my story today! I have 4000 more words I need to write!" Pyro insisted anxiously.

"Did you try hitting the power button?" Gambit asked.

"Do I look stupid to you?"

"Do I look like a computer genius to you? I don't know how to fix a laptop," Gambit replied, but he took it into the kitchen and set it on the bench. He hit the power button firmly, but as Pyro found in his bedroom, the laptop just wouldn't turn on.

"Maybe it's out of battery?" Gambit suggested.

"It shouldn't be. It wasn't last night when I turned it off," Pyro said.

Gambit shrugged. "Well, let's just try plugging it in for a bit and see what happens. May as well, you're not going to get anything done otherwise."

Pyro agreed. Half an hour later though, the laptop still wouldn't turn on.

"You can use my computer," Gambit suggested, seeing the distressed look on Pyro's face.

"My whole story is on there though," Pyro said, gazing at his laptop in despair. "I need the whole thing."

Gambit frowned. "What, you don't have another copy on a USB drive or something?"

"I _did_ have a copy on my blog, but I stopped updating it after the fight with Rogue," Pyro replied irritably, and his face paled. "Oh no. Oh. No. No. Remy, I… I really need to get my story. The last time I updated by blog I still had a bit over 17,000 words to write. I _have to_ get my story back. I can't write 17,000 words in one day!"

The very idea of having to retype everything he'd written made him feel sick to the stomach. He should have continued to update the blog. He could have just changed the password to stop people from reading it.

Gambit frowned. "Well, I don't think I can help you. I can steal computers. I can steal data from computers. But I can't fix them. The only thing I know what to do with a computer with the side off is take the hard drive out."

"Please!" Pyro begged him, grabbing onto the collar of Gambit's coat. "Please, you have to help me!"

Gambit put his hands on Pyro's shoulders. "I'll try, but I can't make any promises."

…

An hour later, Gambit left the Brotherhood house with Pyro's laptop in it's carry bag over his shoulder. The last he saw of Pyro, he was sitting in front of the TV looking completely despondent and disheartened. He didn't have it in him to even try writing the last 4000 words he needed, so badly had the death of his laptop and loss of his novel had been.

In good time, Gambit arrived at the X-Mansion. He let himself in over the gate and through the security system, which didn't even register his arrival, so great was his skill as a thief. He let himself in through the front door like he owned the place and was about to go in deeper when Logan intercepted him.

"Ah, Logan, excellent," Gambit said before Logan could get a word out. "I'm looking for Kitty. I need to ask a favour."

"What? You're dating Rogue now, so you think you can just walk in here whenever you want?" Logan snarled at him.

"It is fairly urgent. Perhaps we can settle this some other time?" Gambit drawled in reply.

"Remy?" Rogue said, staring out into the foyer from the end of the hallway. "What are you doing here?"

"I need a favour of Kitty," Gambit replied, and cleared his throat uncomfortably, knowing that Rogue was angry about Pyro's story. "I've got a dead laptop here, and I was hoping she might be able to retrieve the data for me."

"Retrieve the data huh?" Logan demanded. "Whose laptop did you steal?"

Gambit placed his free hand to his chest. "You wound me, Wolverine. You think I'd be stupid enough to involve the X-Men in my less than legal endeavours."

"Come on," Rogue said before Logan could respond. "She's just in the rec room."

"Merci."

Gambit willingly followed after Rogue, while Logan followed him, determined not to let the Acolyte out of his sight. Rogue led the way to the rec room, where Kitty was watching TV with a few others. Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at Gambit as he entered the room.

"Ah, Remy," Piotr greeted him. "It is good to see you."

"Good to see you too, Tin Man," Gambit replied with a nod, and looked towards Kitty. "Kitty, I was hoping you'd be able to do me a favour, and retrieve the data on this laptop?"

Kitty frowned at the laptop. "Whose laptop and what data?"

"It's Pyro's," Gambit said, making sure to keep his attention on Kitty and not look at Rogue at all. "It wouldn't start up this morning, his only copy of his story is on here, and NaNoWriMo ends today."

"Oh!" Kitty said, her face lighting up. "I was enjoying reading that. I was so disappointed when he stopped updating."

She phased through the lounge and bounded towards Gambit.

"Okay, I'll see if I can get any data off it. Don't know how long it will take though. And I have one condition," she said.

"Yes?"

"You have to tell Pyro he has to let me read the whole story when he's finished."

Gambit grinned at her. "If you can save his story, he'll probably autograph it for you."

Kitty chuckled, took the laptop and raced off to the computer lab. It was only then that Gambit finally looked at Rogue.

"Pyro's huh?" she asked.

"Yeah, I know you don't like the Christophe/Mirabelle scenes," Gambit said. "But Pyro's really been pouring his heart into this story. Plus he's really pathetic when he begs."

…

Pyro felt like crying. He had been so close. He'd even know that morning what he was going to write, and how he was going to use up the remaining 4000 words minimum he needed to write to hit 50,000 words before midnight. He was trying to muster up the enthusiasm to write them with pen and paper, but the thought of losing the other 13,000 words he'd written weighed too heavily on him. It had been hours and he hadn't heard from Gambit. It was over.

He sighed and changed the channel on the TV. Even if this wasn't the last day of NaNoWriMo, he still would have been disheartened. 13,000 words gone. Just gone.

"Hey Pyro," Gambit said, swaggering into the lounge room.

"What?" Pyro asked dismally.

Gambit set down his own laptop in front of Pyro and held up a USB drive.

"Good news. Kitty managed to retrieve your story for you," Gambit said.

Pyro blinked and stared. "Wait, what?"

Gambit grinned at him. "I didn't know what to do with your laptop, so I took it to someone who I thought might. Kitty removed the hard drive, and since it was still working fine, plugged it into another computer she had and copied your story to this for you. She said if you get an external hard drive or something for her, she can save the rest of your data too."

Pyro stared at the laptop and his finger curled around the USB drive. He licked his lips.

"You saved my story?" he asked, unable to believe it.

"Yeah. And Kitty wants to read the whole thing when you're finished," Gambit said and grinned at him. "Now, don't you have 4000 words you need to write still?"

…

Hours later, Pyro chewed his tongue with his heart racing away as he copied and pasted his entire story into the word counter on the NaNoWriMo website. He waited the brief moment it needed to count the words and then his face lit up as his updated word count appeared: 51,347. He couldn't wipe the grin off his face as he scrolled through the winner's page. He downloaded the certificate and all the winners badges. With much glee, he filled out the certificate with his name and the name of his story. As soon as the certificate was printed, he raced outside and ran downstairs to the lounge room, which had been rather noisy for the last hour or so.

"I won!" he shouted excitedly, holding his certificate above his head as he burst into the room.

Gambit, Fred, Todd, Lance, and Pietro he expected.

He did not expect to see Rogue, Kitty, Jean, Scott, Kurt, Bobby, Tabitha, or any of the other X-Men. He certainly didn't expect for everyone to cheer and applaud him.

"Woohoo!"

"Congratulations!"

"Go Pyro!"

"Alright!" Tabitha shouted. "Let's get this party started!"

As she got the music on, Pyro just stared at everyone, unable to believe this was happening. All the years he had done NaNoWriMo no one had ever done anything like this. In fact he was rather used to the 'token congratulations' he usually got. This reaction was so shocking, he was wondering if he was actually dreaming.

"Pyro," Rogue said walking up to him.

Pyro looked at her, wondering if this dream was going to end up being a nightmare.

"I'm still pissed off with you about the whole Mirabelle thing. And if you ever burn off my uniform like that again, I'll feed your body to the worms," Rogue said and held out her hand. "But, congratulations on hitting 50,000 words in 30 days."

Pyro smiled warily, not entirely certain whether to trust her.

"Thanks," he replied, taking her hand to shake it.

"Oh good, we're all made up then?" Gambit asked, coming up from behind and wrapping his arms around Rogue.

"I guess," Rogue replied with a shrug.

"Wait… did you two hook up?" Pyro asked, looking between them with a frown on his face.

"Yeah, a few days ago. Logan is not impressed," Gambit replied with a smirk. "Neither is Magneto for that matter. I'm thinking we should run away together."

"You are not," Rogue said, twisting her head to look at him.

"Or you could make like Mirabelle and defect."

"I am not Mirabelle."

"No," Pyro said firmly. "You're not. I might have drawn from you as a starting point, but she is not you. Christophe is not Remy. I'm not Sunset. Alaina isn't Wanda. The Black Queen isn't Jean, and Fabian isn't Cyclops."

"Wait," Rogue said, staring at him. "The Black Queen is, umm, was Jean?"

Pyro grinned at her. "No, I just said that she wasn't. The Black Queen is her own woman, just like the rest of them. Except the ones who are men, they're their own man."

"I sense I'm going to enjoy reading this story in its entirety," Gambit said slyly. "Especially the sex scenes. Those are hilarious."

Rogue cleared her throat uncomfortably and tried to hide her blush. Pyro didn't notice Rogue's reaction and pulled a face at Gambit.

"Hey there's a reason why I'm writing them that way," Pyro insisted. "The intended audience finds them hot."

Rogue's blush deepened and she started looking around the room for an escape.

"I'm sure they do," Gambit replied with a smirk.

"Hey, Pryo!" Kitty called, bounding over. "Okay, so first of all, congrats on winning NaNoWriMo. And second of all… how far away are you from finishing the story?"

"I've still got a whole chunk of it to go, but I think I'm past the part of the story where I'm most likely to get stuck," Pyro replied thoughtfully, "so hopefully not too long, and then the first draft will be done. And then I'll have to polish it."

"How long does polishing take?

"Oh, I might never finish. But you can read it after the first draft is done. Thanks for saving my story."

"Hey, you're welcome!"


	32. December 1

**December 1**

Wanda looked around the lounge room with a Highly Unimpressed look on her face. Two nights. She was gone for a measly two nights and these little reprobates had managed to trash the place. She could feel the hexes stirring at her fingers. There would be hell to pay.

She stalked up the stairs, deliberately stomping loudly so that everyone would know that she was home and she was mad. She would go after all of them, yes, but not straight away. The anticipation of her wrath falling upon their slovenly heads would make their punishment all the greater!

As she approached her bedroom, dragging her suitcase along behind her, the door to Gambit's room hurriedly opened. It was not Gambit who emerged, but Rogue, and her eyes were red and black.

"Rogue?" Wanda exclaimed. "What are you doing here so early? Or, at all?"

"Uh, well, y'see chere," Rogue began nervously.

"Wait, were you here all night?" Wanda asked, wide-eyed.

"Yeah, you could say that," Rogue said, fidgeting with her glove nervously. "Anyway, I really should get going. Since I didn't go home from the party last night with the others, I'm pretty sure that—"

"There was a party?"

"Oh yeah. We threw it in celebration of Pyro winning that NaNo-whatever thingy," Rogue said, and went on to explain about Pyro's laptop dying and that Kitty had been able to save the story for him.

"That explains the mess downstairs then."

"I guess so. I wouldn't know," and there was a sly glint in Rogue's borrowed eyes as she spoke. "Remy and I ditched the party pretty early to go make one of our own."

"That explains the eyes, and the accent," Wanda replied with a smirk. "Is Remy okay in there?"

"Oh, yeah, he'll be fine," Rogue replied with a wave of her hand as she edged towards the hallway. "He just might not wake up for awhile. Anyway, I really should get going."

"Of course. We'll catch up properly later."

"Right."

Rogue took off and Wanda headed into her room, trying to deal with the idea that the lounge room was a mess because the Brotherhood _and_ the X-Men threw a party for Pyro. She gave a sigh as she set her suitcase on her bed. She supposed she could hold off on exercising her wrath for a day, but only if they used that day to clean up.

Wanda showered, changed, and unpacked. She was pleased when she headed down to the kitchen for lunch that the boys had started cleaning up, no doubt for fear that Wanda would start throwing hexbolts at them, or alternatively, take away their TV. She stood at the doorway for a moment and watched.

"Wanda! Babycakes! It's not what you think!" Todd said anxiously, bounding over to her. "See last night we—"

"I know about the party for Pyro," Wanda replied. "Rogue told me. You can consider this a temporary reprieve."

The four boys looked relieved. The Wanda threw a hexbolt at Todd, sending him flying across the room and hitting the wall.

"What was that for?"

"Wow, when you say 'temporary' you're not kidding."

"That," Wanda said, "was for calling me 'babycakes' again."

She turned on her heel and departed, leaving the boys to get back to their cleaning. She headed back upstairs and on ehr way down the hall, Gambit's door opened again. Gambit was looking somewhat frazzles, but hot, as he emerged wearing nothing but a towel. She had to admit, the views around the Brotherhood house had definitely improved since Gambit and Pyro moved in.

"Morning," Gambit mumbled.

"Afternoon," Wanda replied.

He gave a grunt and Wanda grinned to herself as she continued down the hall and Gambit headed for the bathroom. She stopped outside of Pyro's door and noted that his do not disturb sign was now gone. She knocked.

"Who is it?" Pyro called.

"It's Wanda. Can I come in?"

"Sure!"

Wanda opened the door and stepped inside. Pyro was sitting at his desk with a laptop, typing away.

"Isn't NaNoWriMo over?" she asked as she wandered over.

"Well, yeah, but the story isn't finished yet," Pyro replied.

"Ah, okay. I hear you won, congratulations."

"Thanks."

Wanda smiled down at him and he smiled back up at her. She kind of wanted to kiss him then, but felt awkward about it. She cleared her throat.

"So, I thought your laptop died?"

"Oh, it did," Pyro replied. "This is Remy's. I'm going to keep using it until either Remy asks for it back—or just takes it, I suppose—or I get a new one. Which ever comes back. Probably the former."

Wanda conjured up a hexbolt. "Want me to fix your old one?"

"Thanks for the offer, but no," Pyro replied. "I was talking to Kitty and we both agreed that it was time for me to get a new one. My old one's easily six years old, and most new computers have a lifespan of three to five years apparently, so yeah."

"Alright then," Wanda replied, dissolved the hexbolt, paused for a moment and finally went on with: "So, did Mirabelle and Christophe stop being divas?"

"Oh, those two will never stop being divas. But I did finally managed to get the story back off them and back onto Alaina where it belongs," Pyro said as his face lit up with excitement. "I'm almost at the scene where Roch tries to kill her and she gets to kick butt."

Wanda grinned. "I look forward to reading it."

"I've been planning this scene for so long, it's going to be great!" Pyro said, rubbing his hands together with utter delight.

Wanda looked at Pyro, then at the laptop, then back at Pyro. She made a decision.

"Okay," she said. "I know I'm knew at this dating and flirting and romantic stuff in general, but… but I'm not going to play second fiddle to your story."

"Huh?"

"I like you, Pyro. You know, just in case you've forgotten that after our kiss the other day. You know, the one that sent you straight back to writing," Wanda said. "I love that you're a writer. It's pretty much the thing that attracts me to you, because goodness knows I hadn't really given you much of a second thought in that respect until I found out how smart and creative you are. I by no means want to take you away from your writing, but I do want to start spending more time with you, just you, and not your story as well."

Pyro stared at Wanda for a moment, then slowly stood up.

"Wanda, I… I like you too," he said, feeling nervous himself. "But, umm, my stories are a part of me. I'm not sure you can date me without dating my stories as well."

"I just said that I didn't want to take you away from your writing!"

"I know that. I'm just warning you that I'm always writing my stories, even when I'm not at a computer. They're as much a part of me as my arm," Pyro insisted, and as Wanda looked away, Pyro clasped her hands in his. "My writing is part of my identity, it's not someone I'm dating. You, I hope, will be someone I'm dating, and I promise I'm not going to make a habit of going off to write something every time we kiss."

Wanda cracked a smile.

"You'd better not," she said. "In fact, I think now would be a good time to make good on that promise."

"Huh? Oh! Oh, right okay…"

He licked his lips and Wanda smiled shyly up at him. He leaned in slowly and kissed her. Wanda kissed him back eagerly. His hands slid around her waist and her arms wrapped around his neck and shoulders.

"There, see?" Pyro said, resting his forehead on hers once their lips had finally pulled away. "Not running off to write stuff."

Wanda grinned at him. "Very good. Alright, you, me, dinner tonight. You might have had a party with everyone else last night, but you haven't celebrated with me yet."

"Heh, okay. What time will you pick me up?" Pyro asked, batting his eyelids at her.

"Six. And you'd better be dressed up nice."

"I will."

They kissed again, and then Wanda decided to leave him to his writing. As she departed, Pyro sat back down the the computer with a big silly grin on his face.

This was the best NaNoWriMo he'd ever done.


End file.
